African Americans Doing Feminism: Putting Theory Into Everyday Practice

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African Americans Doing Feminism Putting Theory into Everyday Practice

Edited by

Aaronette M. White

Cover image: “Lovers Doin’ Laundry,” Zeal Harris, visual artist (www.zealsart.com). In the collection of Mr. Omari Trice. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2010 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Eileen Meehan Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data African Americans doing feminism : putting theory into everyday practice / [edited by] Aaronette M. White. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-3141-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4384-3142-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Feminism—United States—History. 2. African American feminists—History. I. White, Aaronette M. HQ1410.A35 2010 305.42089'96073—dc22

2009033540 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: African American Feminist Practices Aaronette M. White

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Part I. Family Values Chapter 1 Mother Work: A Stay-at-Home Mom Advocates for Breastfeeding Angela M. W. Thanyachareon

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Chapter 2 Bringing Up Daddy: A Black Feminist Fatherhood Mark Anthony Neal

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Chapter 3 Tubes Tied, Child-Free by Choice Aaronette M. White

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Part II. Community Building Chapter 4 ¡Ola, Hermano! A Black Latino Feminist Organizes Men Omar Freilla

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Chapter 5 “Sister Outsiders”: How the Students and I Came Out Mary Anne Adams

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Contents

Chapter 6 Feminist Compassion: A Gay Man Loving Black Women Todd C. Shaw

101

Chapter 7 Gay, Gray, and a Place to Stay: Living It Up and Out in an RV Aaronette M. White and Vera C. Martin

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Part III. Romantic Partnerships Chapter 8 The Second Time Around: Marriage, Black Feminist Style Pearl Cleage

129

Chapter 9 “Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone”: Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me William Dotson

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Chapter 10 When the Hand That Slaps Is Female: Fighting Addiction Dorothy M.

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Part IV. Healing Practices Chapter 11 Resistance as Recovery: Winning a Sexual Harassment Complaint Carolyn M. West Chapter 12 Learning to Love the Little Black Boy in Me: Breaking Family Silences, Ending Shame Gary L. Lemons

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Chapter 13 I Took Back My Dignity: Surviving and Thriving after Incest Carolyn E. Gross

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Chapter 14 Diving Deep and Surfacing: How I Healed from Depression Vanessa Jackson

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Contents

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Part V. Career Dilemmas Chapter 15 Mary, Don’t You Weep: A Feminist Nun’s Vocation Sister Sojourner Truth

245

Chapter 16 Becoming an Entrepreneur Deloise (Dee) A. Frisque

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Chapter 17 Light on a Dark Path: Self-Discovery among White Women Marian Cannon Dornell

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Chapter 18 The Accidental Advocate: Life Coaching as a Feminist Vocation Anitra L. Nevels

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List of Contributors

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Index

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Acknowledgments I am grateful to all the authors whose works are included in this volume for sharing intimate details regarding their feminist practices. Special thanks to Jacqueline Lapidus for providing feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. Three chapters in this book are reprinted. An earlier version of chapter 2, Mark Anthony Neal’s “Bringing Up Daddy: A Black Feminist Fatherhhood,” is reproduced from Neal’s book New Black Man (Routledge, 2005) with permission from Taylor Francis. Pearl Cleage’s chapter 8 essay, “The Second Time Around,” is reprinted here with her permission. Gary L. Lemons’s chapter 12, “Learning to Love the Little Black Boy in Me: Breaking Family Silences, Ending Shame,” is reproduced from his book Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man, A Memoir (SUNY, 2007) with permission from the State University of New York Press. Haki Madhubuti’s poem “My Brothers” from his book Groundwork: New and Selected Poems from 1966–1996 (Chicago: Third World) is reproduced in chapter 6 with his permission.

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Introduction

African American Feminist Practices

Abstract political and moral statements, however inspiring they may be, do not in themselves produce social change. Real change requires real-life action. This collection of first-person narratives provides much-needed examples of the concrete ways in which contemporary African Americans, both women and men, live by feminist principles, not just as beliefs or theories but by our actions in concrete situations. Feminists—whether inside or outside academic settings—are accustomed to working with ideas and models that are part of a larger ideology of social justice, which we need to understand and transform our world. Feminism, however, is more than a set of theories and perspectives associated with a particular ideology; it is something we put into practice. How can ordinary people, whether or not they identify themselves as feminists, apply to their daily lives the basic idea that women are as fully human as men? And if we do identify as feminists, how do we relate our feminist ideas and values to our behavior? The African American women and men in this book share personal accounts of how they encountered feminist ideas and are using them now as a guide to living, expressed in relevant, everyday practices. A person, female or male, whose feminism is practical recognizes that there is an imbalance of power between men and women in our society and acts publicly and privately in ways to correct that imbalance.1 The personal chapters included here reveal how feminist principles affect people’s perception of their ability to change themselves as well as society. At the heart of our autobiographical chapters, we address the following questions with examples from our lived experiences: How can people understand what the personal benefits of feminism are, when so much of the information available about it is conveyed through elitist (and often biased and hostile) print and electronic media sources? In what ways can feminists contribute to the rehumanization of society when we ourselves have been deeply traumatized by its dehumanizing aspects? As we fight for social justice institutionally, how can we practice it individually? How can we make feminism work in our lives?

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Authors in the collection emphasize that we must reflect seriously on our everyday lives; otherwise, we become oblivious to the reality that there may be a huge gap between our expressed feminist ideas and the real values that drive our acts. If there is a gap, we become activists in the abstract but not in our everyday behavior. Personal reflection on the real-life consequences of our human frailties reminds us that we are not above reproach. As we fight for the realization of certain values at the institutional level, we must also realize that these values are meaningless if they are absent from our habitual practices. Admittedly, we have contradictions. African Americans Doing Feminism reveals how we learn to face them and work to transcend them. Our experiences suggest that if we maintain a long-term commitment to change, if we are truly accountable to a movement that represents our best intentions, our behavior will gradually fall in line with our ideas.

The Personal Is Political: Institutional Forces and Individual Behavior Sometimes the personal is not self-evidently political; therefore, in each chapter the contributors to this book attempt to make the connection between our individual problems, perceptions, and choices and the institutions that have shaped those factors. We believe it is important to make the link between private and public worlds because the difficulty in changing ourselves is related, in part, to the difficulty of changing political and economic structures that reinforce dehumanizing behavior that demeans women and men. Often, when we change our interpersonal behavior to support our feminist beliefs, we collide with other people, power relations, and institutions that strive to censure us. Our struggle to dismantle the effects of sexism in our personal lives also requires changing the institutional structures that reinforce sexism and the other oppressive systems that intersect with sexism (e.g., racism, heterosexism, and economic inequalities). Because of those connections, while reading this work it is important to remain mindful of the social forces that both shape and sanction individual behavior. These are not simply stories about personal issues that feminists have with others. Rather, these “sociopolitical” narratives demonstrate how underlying our personal life experiences are institutional factors that shape our experiences and our responses to what happens to us. Our responses either support or challenge the assumptions and practices of institutionalized injustices such as sexism and racism. While our narratives emerge from personal experiences we have had as feminists, this collection does not depend solely on personal reflection. We have also linked our actions as feminists to feminist theoretical perspectives. Authors offer intersectional analyses of their lives, stressing how their practice

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of feminism cannot be separated from awareness of systems of race, sexuality, and class oppression. Together our life stories conclude that dismantling sexism and other forms of oppression necessitates collective action that will bring about changes in the economy, the labor market, social policy and the state, as well as in the domestic sphere, the nature of sexual encounters, and the social construction of racial and sexual difference.2 All chapters in this book connect the personal to the political, making clear our belief that as we strive to change at the personal level, we must simultaneously strive at the collective level through organized action. All but three chapters (Neal, chapter 2; Cleage, chapter 8; and Lemons, chapter 12) are published here for the first time. This collection contributes to the continued development of feminist theory in practice, grounding it in the diverse experiences of self-identified African American feminists. Although African American feminists were targeted, their definitions and experiences of feminism could be drawn from a wide variety of available feminisms. We reject monolithic notions of what an “African American feminist practice” is, or even what an African American feminist is. However, certain themes emerge, such as (1) how interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class) affect Black women’s lives; (2) the adoption of a multipronged approach to problem-solving that tackles multiple inequalities, as well as Black women’s multiple identities and roles, and (3) our commitment to addressing both racial and gender equalities, without ranking one as more important than the other.3 As editor, given the dynamic nature of language and expressions of feminism, Black feminism, and womanism,4 I did not tell authors how to define “feminist.” Instead, I encouraged them to use the definitions that were rooted in their lived experiences. These chapters expose the ways that “race, gender sexuality, and class categories intertwine and transform each other; although these categories are socially constructed, they have real consequences for real people.”5 Together, they present identities as elastic and expansive, demonstrate respect for the variety of voices within the movement, and challenge the politics of what is “respectable and acceptable.” We share stories many women and men are uncomfortable telling or have previously refused to tell.6 Our practices can be adopted regardless of one’s racial designation or cultural background, given the humanistic values that underlie them. However, our experiences do not necessarily reflect the experiences of all Black feminists. As African American feminists, in particular, we strongly believe that anyone who dismisses the relevance of feminism for African American individuals and institutions is expressing cynicism, rather than a commitment to the social justice concerns of African American women and men. We are painfully aware that racism on the part of many White, middle-class feminists has affected each historical period of the women’s movement and that narrow interpretations of

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feminism have not served us, as African Americans.7 However, we believe that African Americans do have something to gain from feminist perspectives that appropriately and critically consider the personal and political interconnections among race, class, sexuality, and other systemic forces. In addition, this collection challenges those African Americans who think that we must refrain from “airing dirty laundry” as proof of our loyalty to radical Black politics. We emphasize, instead, the radical need for African Americans to change our behavior—rather than hide our behavior—and we claim our right to make mistakes and evolve, like most human beings. That is the concept of radical Black politics to which we are loyal. Our autobiographical chapters suggest that the development of feminist practices by women of color is a dynamic process. This finding is consistent with previous edited collections by women of color, such as The Black Woman; This Bridge Called My Back; Home Girls; Making Face/Making Soul; Yell-Oh Girls! and Colonize This!8 As we move toward a society of mutual respect and safety for all, we have found it helpful to share honestly with one another how the combined effects of patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, classism, and other oppressive forces continue to distort our lives—even as we try to resist such forces. Every one of us has experienced both hope regarding the process of change and despair when it is slow, uneven, bumpy, and full of contradiction and backlash. We understand and accept that in a racially divided, heterosexist, market-driven, patriarchal society, we must be willing to risk alienation from men and women both inside and outside our various communities. We also acknowledge that only slowly, and with enormous pressure from—and corresponding bitterness for—African American feminists, will we see significant changes in African American communities and society at large. Backlash notwithstanding, we intend to leave no one out of our humanist vision for social change. We believe that anyone, at any given moment, can become a part of the solution. Our experiences have taught us that anyone can teach us something, and that as social change agents we always have more to learn. For shared and creative power to be rediscovered, as our narratives make clear, it is essential not to assume that we know how everything should be done. We would like to avoid the misguided, authoritarian notion that we have indisputable truths to impose. That certainly does not mean we have nothing useful to propose! Each narrative is an attempt to demonstrate open-mindedness by affirming our feminist insights without putting down others (feminists and nonfeminists alike) who actively choose (or lapse into) other options. As with most feminist anthologies, a middle-class bias is evident, given that most women and men nowadays are exposed to feminist perspectives and writings in university settings. Fortunately, the conversational writing style of

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most of the authors makes the volume accessible to high school, college, and lay-educated readers alike. Moreover, despite the fact that colleges and universities offer the most supportive setting for many African American feminists, individuals who work outside academic settings contributed more than half of the narratives in the collection. Chapters in the collection were written by people who were born between 1923 and 1973.

Overview of the Volume African Americans Doing Feminism addresses five broad areas. In part 1, “Family Values,” contributors write about their decisions to have or not have children and their experiences with feminist parenting. Angela M. W. Thanyachareon, a lawyer, embraces full-time mothering and explains, in chapter 1, why breastfeeding is both a feminist and a human rights issue. Writer and academic Mark Anthony Neal discusses how progressive Black feminist politics expand his notions of fatherhood and Black masculinity (chapter 2). Research psychologist and professor Aaronette M. White, a reproductive-rights activist who was sure she did not want to have children, describes voluntarily having a tubal ligation, as a means of practicing what she preached (chapter 3). Part 2, “Community Building” includes feminists who are involved in both individual and group empowerment activities. Omar Freilla, a Black Latino environmentalist and administrator, recalls how his personal commitment to his feminist partner led to a public commitment and the founding of Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism at Morehouse College (chapter 4). Social worker Mary Anne Adams, an openly proud lesbian, describes how her own coming-out process motivated her to help lesbian and gay students of color obtain scholarships, thereby building a community from former outsiders (chapter 5). Witnessing Black men’s violence against Black women helped political science professor Todd C. Shaw speak out against violence on college campuses and “come out” to women friends who validated his feminist perspectives on gender, sexuality, and relationships (chapter 6). Vera C. Martin offers her rationale for living out her retirement years in an RV park, to fulfill her need for a community of women who embrace being old and lesbian (chapter 7). Part 3, “Romantic Partnerships,” examines intimate involvements that ultimately strengthened the feminist commitments of authors. In chapter 8, writer and activist Pearl Cleage shares the concrete ways in which she and her husband practice feminism, making marriage viable for a progressive African American couple. Health educator and executive William Dotson (chapter 9) tells how a twenty-year “off-again-on-again” relationship with a Black feminist woman helped him gradually redefine how he understood and lived manhood.

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Dorothy M. (chapter 10), already a feminist, struggled to stop being both victim and perpetrator in a violent lesbian relationship, finally getting the help she needed to sustain her recovery. “Healing Practices” are covered in part 4. These chapters detail how feminists learn from painful conditions in their past and become the people they want to be. Professor Carolyn M. West finds solace in the words and actions of Black feminist foremothers while fighting a sexual harassment battle that she ultimately wins (chapter 11). Gary L. Lemons, a professor of English, articulates his vision of “Black feminist male recovery” as a childhood survivor of and witness to domestic violence (chapter12). In chapter 13, sociology professor Carolyn E. Gross describes how she developed resilience as a survivor of incest, and how both radical and Black feminist perspectives continue to help her thrive. Psychotherapist Vanessa Jackson (chapter 14) uses both ancient and contemporary woman-centered strategies to heal from depression, countering the oppressive myth of the Black superwoman in her own life and in the lives of her clients. Part 5, “Career Dilemmas,” presents the variety of work-related options feminists choose and the feminist perspectives that help them navigate occupational challenges. In chapter 15, Sister Sojourner Truth explains how feminist and womanist theologies help her stay committed to the revolutionary resistance that lies at the heart of her spiritual vocation and her choice to remain a celibate nun. Deloise (Dee) A. Frisque left the academic world to start her own business, relying on feminist principles to guide her through recurring bouts of self-doubt and fear (chapter 16). When Marian Cannon Dornell felt like a mere “token” Black student in nursing school, a group of White feminist-oriented women became her allies (chapter 17). Her narrative parallels that of Mary Church Terrell, an early 20th century Black feminist, allowing the reader to see how similar pressures can be overcome with comparable support networks. In chapter 18, life coach Anitra L. Nevels describes her vocational journey, in the course of which an epiphany in an emergency room led to her decision to teach women financial literacy. African Americans Doing Feminism makes clear that self-identifying as “feminist” and making feminist choices are not always easy or comfortable. A certain level of vulnerability, contradiction, redefinition, and uncertainty can be found in the narratives, reflecting the realities of adult feminist identity development and the adoption of “doable” practices. But, none of us would have it any other way. Our future and our self-respect depend on it.

Notes 1. White, A. (2008), Ain’t I a Feminist? African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom, ix (New York: State University of New York Press).

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2. For an overview of African American feminist thought, see Guy-Sheftall, B., 1995 (Words of Fire: African American Feminist Thought (New York: New). 3. For additional discussion of African feminist themes, see the following: Collins, P. H., 1990, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Boston: Unwin Hyman); Guy-Sheftall, B., 1995, Words of Fire: African American Feminist Thought (New York: New); Simien, E. M., 2006, Black Feminist Voices in Politics (New York: State University of New York Press); Smith, B., ed., 1983, Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. (New York: Kitchen Table). 4. Valenti. J., 2007, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters. (Emeryville, CA: Seal); Phillips, L., 2006, The Womanist Reader (New York: Routledge); Pough, G., E. Richardson, A. Durham, and R. Raimist, eds., 2007, Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology (Mira Loma, CA: Parker). 5. White, E. F., 2001. Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 15. 6. Ibid. 7. For historical examples of racism in the feminist movement, see the following: Caraway, N., 1991, Segregated Sisterhood: Racism and the Politics of American Feminism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1991); Giddings, P., 1996, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: Morrow); Joseph, G., and J. Lewis, 1981, Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives (Boston: South End, 1981); Ware, V., 1992, Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History (New York: Verso). For a more hopeful view of a particular slice of recent feminist history, see Valk, Anne M., 2008, Radical Sisters: Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, D.C. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press). 8. Cade, T., 1983, The Black Woman: An Anthology (New York: Signet); Moraga, C., and G. Anzaldua, eds., 1981 This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Watertown, MA: Persephone); Smith, B., ed., 1983, Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table); Anzaldua, G., ed., 1995, Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color (San Francisco: Aunt Lute); Nam, V., 2001, Yell-Oh Girls! Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing Up Asian American (New York: HarperCollins); Hernandez, D., and B. Rehman, eds., 2002, Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (Emeryville, CA: Seal).

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Part I

Family Values

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Chapter 1

Mother Work A Stay-at-Home Mom Advocates Breastfeeding

Angela M. W. Thanyachareon

The freedom to work at any job for which one is qualified should be everyone’s right. However, that freedom has not been available to most workers, particularly Black women and other working women of color.1 Historically, African American women have been forced to work outside the home and relegated to the lowest category of labor in both racial- and gender-segregated work.2 Unquestionably, institutionalized race, gender, and class injustices have limited many Black women’s options. However, a significant number of Black women—regardless of limited economic opportunities—have been able to develop a spirit of independence and a keen sense of our personal rights.3 Moreover, some of us—although not nearly enough of us—have been able to take advantage of educational and training opportunities that the majority of our foremothers never had. I am one such Black woman. By standing on the shoulders of those Black women who came before me, lovingly held close by many seen and unseen hands, I was encouraged to pursue a career path that resulted in my becoming an attorney. After six years of marriage and three and a half months of pregnancy, I quit my salaried job and prepared for the unsalaried work associated with becoming a stay-at-home mom. This new identity and different work schedule required a major adjustment in my lifestyle. My self-worth was intricately tied to my career as a lawyer. I had dreamed of becoming an attorney since age 12 and had landed a challenging and rather prestigious job in my field before my husband and I decided to start a family. After resigning from my job, I had difficulty remembering who I was before and spent long, lonely days wondering who I wanted to become during this next phase of my life.

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During the pregnancy, one dilemma I faced was whether to choose to take six weeks of maternity leave, use childcare services, then return to a job that included a long commute and a 12-hour work day, or relinquish a substantial part of our family income by resigning from my job in order to stay at home with my child during the first few years. I wanted to breastfeed my child on demand and not worry about the quality of different childcare centers.4 The constraints of my work environment, the questionable quality of childcare centers, a keen sense of my personal rights, a loving and understanding husband who respects my rights (and who has salaried work outside the home), a marriage that my husband and I view as a partnership, and a healthy dose of feminist socialization all contributed to my decision to stay at home and breastfeed. Early exposure to feminism had helped me develop the respect for my body that led to a sense of autonomy regarding decisions surrounding my health. Feminist perspectives contributed to a parenting identity that values both salaried work outside the home and unsalaried work at home. Specifically, I am learning to treasure women’s reproductive work in the home as much as I treasure wage-based productive work outside it (“mother work” versus “other work”). My experiences as a Black feminist have taught me that it is not enough to educate people solely about the health benefits of breastfeeding; I have found it equally important to address its relationship to current conflicts regarding women’s roles, waged labor, and the value of family life vis-à-vis women of color and working-class women. The politics of breasts and breastfeeding (particularly, misconceptions about breastfeeding) have increased my commitment to feminist parenting advocacy from a human rights perspective. Ultimately, being a feminist, to me, means not only fighting for equal rights, equal pay, and respect for women, but also insisting on retaining the right to choose to be a mother, stay at home, and breastfeed one’s baby. In addition, being a Black feminist who has access to certain privileges means engaging in activism that ensures that all women have access to resources that respect their basic human right to breastfeed if they so desire.

A Feminist Is Born: Feminist Siblings and the Feminist Health Movement I am the youngest of five sisters (no brothers). Two of my four older sisters are unapologetically radical African American feminists! Their feminist wisdom and practices paved the way for my feminism to flourish. My two feminist sisters were strongly influenced by the women’s health movement and taught me to love and learn about my body when they were learning to love and gather information about their own bodies. They taught me about my reproductive rights and choices when I was an adolescent. They asked me challenging ques-

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tions on topics such as sex, pregnancy prevention, and abortion. From those discussions and the literature they shared with me, a feminist was born in me. As I learned to view health from physical, mental, and spiritual perspectives, I actively took charge of my health regarding sexual practices, exercise, nutrition, stress management, and a host of other areas. My two sisters and I eventually became active members of the National Black Women’s Health Project and participated in conferences and local selfhelp groups that encouraged Black women to become active advocates for their health needs and wants.5 During this time I learned about fertility awareness methods by combining the calendar (rhythm) method and the cervical mucus Billing’s method.6 From the calendar method, I discovered my fertile and nonfertile days using a record of my previous menstrual cycles. With the cervical mucus method, I observed and recorded the nature of my mucus over several cycles to predict when I was ovulating.7 My feminist beliefs had taught me to respect the wisdom of women and women’s particular ways of knowing that are shared in woman-to-woman networks. My husband and I enthusiastically sought and obtained medical insurance that covered these specific services. At the time I was trying to conceive, I chose to have my maternity care with a registered nurse who was also a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) in private practice. Earlier exposure to women’s health issues and my feminist sisters’ ongoing involvement with women’s health advocacy empowered me to educate myself regarding my pregnancy. I bought and read books on pregnancy, nutrition, and exercise. I practiced pregnancy yoga and tracked my pregnancy weekly. I also conducted research on the Internet in order to understand how my body was changing and how my baby was developing. My husband and I enrolled in childbirth education classes at a local hospital because a belief in shared parenting is also a part of my feminist practices.8 Feminism, in my experience, has come to mean open-mindedness and willingness to learn new ways of approaching old problems. My husband and I wanted to be more than mere parents; we wanted to be good parents. We also wanted to adopt nonviolent approaches to child discipline. The parenting classes were extremely informative and empowering. Seven months into the pregnancy, I began attending the local La Leche League group meetings because I had decided to breastfeed my baby. Although the La Leche League does not refer to itself as a feminist organization, I found the group supportive of my feminist beliefs about breastfeeding, parenting, and a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and baby based on the knowledge of other women.9 I wanted to make my first labor and delivery experience as comfortable as possible. I had learned from health educational programs that I would be most comfortable if I experienced the majority of the stages of labor at home

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immersed in water and not at the hospital. So, when I went into labor, I labored all night at home February 6, 2001, beginning around 11:00 p.m. The next day, two hours before I was to give birth, I checked into the hospital. I rocked in a rocking chair as an alternative to receiving anesthetics—not because of some masochistic need to engage in “motherly martyrdom” but because of the negative implications for breastfeeding of using pain medications. In one study, babies whose mothers had received an epidural anesthetic were less alert, less able to orient themselves, and had less organized movements than babies whose mothers had given birth without medication.10 I wanted our baby to be born alert and ready to breastfeed immediately. I also wanted to be alert, because of the finding that a mother who breastfeeds her newborn within minutes after delivery experiences uterine contractions that reduce the flow of blood and result in the uterus getting back in shape most quickly.11 On February 7, 2001, our son, Brandon, was born. Not only did I choose a certified nurse midwife instead of an obstetrician to be in the delivery room, but I also prepared a written birth plan, with instructions about how I wanted my labor and delivery to be conducted in the hospital. My birth plan specified that our midwife, an assisting nurse, and my husband should accompany me in the labor and delivery room. I did not want any medical doctors pressuring me to allow them to perform an unnecessary cesarean or to use forceps, a vacuum, an epidural, or any other pain medications. I also did not want to assume a prone birthing position, given my preference for the squatting position. The midwife and the hospital staff followed my birth plan as written, so my husband and I have a pleasant and wonderful memory of the birth of our son, the moment we became parents. While feminist mothers do not always choose identical birthing practices, women seeking information about how to have a woman-centered birthing experience—or who simply wish to avoid hospital routines designed to support the hospital staff rather than the mother’s wishes—have a plethora of feminist scholarly and lay literature from which to draw. Unfortunately, very little feminist literature is available regarding infant feeding, particularly breastfeeding as feminist work. Feminist critics have been more concerned with the unfair patriarchal pressures placed on women to breastfeed—or not to. However, if we view breastfeeding as valued, productive work, as opposed to the patriarchal description of it as “a mother’s duty,” then conditions for its successful integration with other institutional policies regarding work must be arranged.12

What Is “Real” Work? “Mother Work” versus “Other Work” In most societies, the rules regarding breastfeeding are made by men and tend to support male-dominated institutions.13 According to some feminist viewpoints,

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women have lost control over their bodies because of the “medicalization of women’s reproduction.”14 Women’s reproduction became medicalized when medical knowledge became synonymous with scientific knowledge. Gradually, as scientific knowledge came to have privileged status, it replaced traditional women’s knowledge about mothering. As physicians continued to stress a close identity between science and medicine, they simultaneously emphasized that they were the experts and created a gulf between “medical advice”—which was often conflicting—and the wisdom and experiences of women who had successfully breastfed. Patriarchal perceptions of mothers (especially women of color and working-class mothers) as ignorant and uncaring may also explain why physicians began to ask, “What is the best substitute for human milk?” rather than “How can we help mothers become successful at breastfeeding?”15 Successful breastfeeding reduces women’s dependence on medical professionals and increases women’s confidence in their ability to meet the needs of their infants. The knowledge that midwives, lactation consultants, breastfeeding support groups, and mothers have about infant care and feeding is valuable and can be exchanged among women in settings where problems are patiently addressed. Medical doctors rarely have the time to address the variety of issues mothers face when attempting to breastfeed for the first time; thus, many women have felt at a disadvantage when attempting to discuss breastfeeding difficulties with their doctors. Doctors often suggest mothers wean the baby to the bottle because (1) of the current belief in the efficacy of the bottle, (2) many doctors have very little education in handling breastfeeding problems, and (3) doctors find it easier (less time consuming) to recommend bottle feeding.16 Sexist, racist, and classist beliefs about the intellectual capacity for women to care for their young as well as the particularly sexist belief that women’s reproductive work is less important than “salaried-outside-of-the-home-work,” place many women in the position of having to choose between breastfeeding their children or keeping their jobs.17 Furthermore, the excessive advertising campaigns of infant formula manufacturers play on the male-dominated nature of the work environment, which devalues women’s reproductive work, and the equally male-dominated culture, market-driven medical establishment that tends to treat both patients and patient services as commodities. The decision not to spend cash on breast milk substitutes thus becomes rejection of a consumeroriented mentality in market-driven societies that pressure women to rely on expensive, industrially produced foods.18 When one also considers the lack of accurate advice from friends and relatives, most of whom have never breastfed, it’s a wonder that any woman chooses to breastfeed her child today. As a feminist, I do not believe that women should ever be forced to make a choice between mother work and other work, and I believe women have the right to breastfeed, with appropriate support. Women are often afraid to demand their right to breastfeed from their employers, for fear that they will

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be discriminated against. Black women, in particular, are vulnerable because of historically racialized and sexualized stereotypes that represent us as lazy, overly sexual, and animalistic. Although women in various cultures in Africa and the South Pacific used to go about their day comfortably with their breasts uncovered, overemphasis on the erotic nature of breasts led Europeans to interpret women from these cultures as hypersexual and primitive. While Black women were being represented as partially nude animals, White women were being portrayed as fully clothed, civilized, domestic angels.19 The history of Black women’s bodies as commodities on the slave block where prospective buyers openly examined our teeth, muscles, and breasts has had a dramatic effect on our need for respectability and privacy.20 Southern slavery and Western traditions perceived breastfeeding as animallike and reserved it for wet nurses who were often Black or poor.21 Hence “the politics of respectability” or being respected as an equal and competent worker in the work environment is a major concern for many Black women, given centuries of racist and sexist discrimination.22 Feminist researcher Linda Blum found that Black women provide multiple reasons for rejecting breastfeeding, but most mention the need for vigilance in keeping their bodies (body parts) private, saying that breastfeeding violates that privacy and increases the chance that they will be viewed in stereotypical ways in public breastfeeding situations.23 In addition to these personal reasons for not wanting to breastfeed, most women of color and working-class women in the workforce do not have jobs that allow them to express their milk with breast pumps.24 When women who wish to breastfeed their babies cannot do so because of inadequate support from family or health workers, workplace constraints, or misinformation from the infant-food industry and the public, they are oppressed and exploited by a society that is denying them a basic human right.25 Our society must create conditions that support successful breastfeeding; when these conditions are met, we are creating conditions that reduce gender inequities by emphasizing the value of women’s reproductive work, women’s rights, and women’s possibilities. Today, in the United States, White mothers are more likely to breastfeed than Latina and African American mothers.26 This difference in breastfeeding patterns can be partially understood in terms of the greater education and income—especially the more flexible work schedule—that White women generally enjoy. However, another difference between White women and African American women is the history of slavery and servitude that Black women have experienced at the hands of White women.27 Black women’s ancestors breastfed generations of White babies—as well as their own. Thus, some Black women welcome bottle feeding as a release from years of physical servitude. In addition, bottle feeding offers many economically disadvantaged Black women—and working-class women in general—a seemingly convenient way to cope with the ongoing demands of market-driven American

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work environments. Often they are employed in menial labor outside the home where breastfeeding mothers are not accommodated.28 Although Black women have reported that bottle feeding with artificial formulas allows “others to feed the baby and unburdens their already overly burdened bodies,” the prevailing message is that only some women deserve to stay at home with their children, namely, White privileged women.29 In particular, the ugly stereotype of African American stay-at-home moms as unwed, uneducated, baby factories and lowincome collectors of government checks and subsidies appalls me.30 Breastfeeding education campaigns must take these race and class issues into account when targeting women of color, who characteristically have low breastfeeding rates. These structural factors—rather than general information about the benefits of breast milk—shape whether women have any real decision-making power over how they will feed their infants.31 For these reasons, we must be careful when discussing either breastfeeding or staying at home as a “choice,” because couching breastfeeding politics in terms of individual preference disguises the privilege associated with breastfeeding at home full-time or combining breastfeeding work and working outside of the home. Most women have little or no choice and thus bottle feed by default.32 “Choice” is clearly related to social status, material resources, and other structural factors, even though it is often articulated in individual or personal decision-making language.33 I was distressed by comments of family members and friends suggesting that I get a “real” job or that I return to “work”—as if breastfeeding and rearing a child is not “real” work or even “hard” work. Their comments certainly reinforce the sexist notion that rearing a child full-time is no longer viewed as important work. Other well-meaning friends referred to my years of education and legal training as wasted. How is it a waste of one’s education to assist intimately with the emotional, mental, and physical development of one’s child? Thanks to my education I have been able to recognize my options and ability to nurture my child during his earliest beginnings on the planet, with consistent loving discipline, home schooling, and holistic care. Although breastfeeding on demand is nutritionally beneficial, I can honestly admit that being a stay-at-home mom can be time consuming. I am busier than ever—even busier than I was as a practicing attorney. I must run errands of every sort, schedule and attend a variety of doctor appointments (dental, general practitioner, pediatrician), make and return phone calls, write business letters, pay the bills, exercise, clean the house, wash clothes, cook dinner, and tend to my son’s particular developmental needs. My son is a priority; therefore, some household or family matter is often put on hold (and thus neglected) for the sake of my son not being neglected. Staying at home and breastfeeding my child has been the hardest—yet most rewarding—job I have ever encountered! When I was working outside the home, I could clock out at the end of the day, but as a parent who works

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in the home, I never clock out. Today, I actually perceive working outside the home as a much-desired break from my “real work” as a breastfeeding, stayat-home mom. The patriarchal, often racist, and classist views of others often left me feeling isolated—politically, emotionally, and spiritually. During these periods, I turned toward the sustenance offered by the La Leche League. The La Leche League has been instrumental in supporting breastfeeding mothers. It helped me connect spiritually to other breastfeeding mothers and to reembrace the real life complexities of my current choices. Specifically, it helped me live comfortably as an African American breastfeeding, feminist mother who is currently choosing to stay and work at home even though I am also a trained professional. My multiple identities provide me with multiple options that my foremothers rarely had. League leaders and members served as role models in this new phase of my development as a breastfeeding feminist mother.

Got (Breast) Milk? The Love of the La Leche League The La Leche League, founded in 1956, is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization entirely supported by donations, membership fees, and sales of materials.34 League meetings are informal discussion groups often led at a public location. Leaders and members provide practical physical and psychological information concerning breastfeeding.35 Although the founders of the League believed that medical misinformation was often responsible for a mother’s failure to breastfeed, they never intended for the League to function independently of the medical community or to compete with it. The League has always depended on medical advisors and has never sought to replace good scientific information or the proper role of the doctor. However, its members are convinced that mother-to-mother help is radically different from doctor-to-mother help and that many questions can best be answered by experienced mothers.36 Although the League is not allied with any other cause or movement, I found its beliefs about breastfeeding, parenting, and nutrition compatible with my feminist beliefs. In addition, both of my League leaders were feminist advocates for breastfeeding and role models who helped me become comfortable in my new identity as a stay-at-home feminist mother. Their passion, nurturing support, and attentive style of listening helped me explore options I would have never considered otherwise. Their holistic approach to health exposed me to information that has helped my entire family. My League leaders suggested that I consider alternative ways of healing that would not affect my breast milk in ways that could jeopardize my baby’s health, such as physical therapy for lower back pain rather than painkillers, herbal teas instead of caffeinated teas, and homeopathic remedies for other health issues that my baby and I periodically faced (e.g., teething tablets for his discomfort).

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It is hard to imagine how I would have coped without the enthusiasm and dedication of my League leaders. Although I have been the only African American member in my local La Leche League chapter for the past two years, my bonding with the other women in the group has transcended race and ethnicity. I connect with League members as women, mothers, feminists, and advocates for our children and our bodies. Feminism taught me the importance of connecting with other women regardless of political ideology, ethnic background, religious preference, or income level and not to allow these differences to keep us from recognizing—and organizing around—our common interests. Because of this “feminist openness” to other women, I have found mother-tomother support among breastfeeding women to be one of the most important gifts one woman can give to another. My support group helped me grapple with misconceptions about breastfeeding, racist, sexist, and classist stereotypes about stay-at-home-moms, and a host of other discouraging comments from people who I assumed supported and connected with me culturally.

Whose Breast and Whose Milk Is It Anyway? Popular Misconceptions Because of harassment by strangers, relatives, and well-intentioned friends, I found it necessary to be clear on the laws regarding public breastfeeding and indecent exposure. Recently, laws have had to be established conferring upon women the right to nurse in public without being arrested for obscenity.37 Federal legislation protects breastfeeding in public, clarifying that the act is not a criminal offense. Many states have laws that further protect breastfeeding mothers from harassment. These laws not only protect mothers but also encourage mothers to breastfeed confidently for longer periods.38 The Sexualized Breast versus the Maternal Breast Ideally, women should be able to breastfeed in public without legal punishment or the insult of being told “that’s disgusting.” However, the cult of the erotic breast and the primacy of the male body as the norm increase the subordination of women’s bodies and the denigration of women’s reproductive work.39 The breast’s erotic potential has come to overshadow its maternal meaning; moreover, women’s bodies, particularly their breasts, are often portrayed in the media as sexual objects and commodities to be used and consumed solely by men.40 The objectification of women’s breasts has created significant discomfort, embarrassment, and the perception that a breastfeeding mother is not being sufficiently modest. Currently, mothers experience extreme pressure to keep breastfeeding—especially the nursing breast—out of sight.41 Mothers who breastfeed in public challenge the notion that women and their body parts are merely sex objects. Additionally, Black women who breastfeed in public must

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grapple with stereotypical representations that combine race, gender, and classbased images of us as breeders (for the slave master), feeders/wet nurses (for the slave mistress), and primitive.42 I respect the choices Black women make in trying to establish respect for ourselves in a society that has shown us very little.43 However, my approach to self-respect and honoring my foremothers is through boldly exercising my right to breastfeed my child wherever I am and whenever my child needs this form of sustenance. As I lovingly and confidently breastfeed my child in both private and public settings, I challenge the cult of the eroticized breast, the cult of what it means to be a “respectable, modest lady” in public, and the cult of the “Black mammy” who must care for the children of White women at the expense of her own. As I develop an alternative “Black feminist politics of respectability,” countering the view that breasts are solely sexual rather than maternal in function, here are some challenges I have faced. One Sunday, a church member intrusively suggested, “If a mother breastfeeds beyond infancy, only the mother is getting the thrill.” That assumption has insulting, incestuous overtones. It demonstrates the lack of distinction people make between maternal pleasure, sensual experiences, and sexual experiences. Breastfeeding is intended to be a pleasurable experience for both the mother and the child.44 It involves the senses, thus it is a sensual experience. However, puritanical views regarding sensuality and the inability of the public to make a distinction between the sexual and maternal aspects of breasts are at the root of the discomfort some people feel at the sight of a woman breastfeeding.45 I make an effort to breastfeed Brandon discreetly in public. Sometimes I wear nursing outfits, and I always wear a nursing bra in order to avoid a charge of indecent exposure. When my son was a newborn I wore a baby sling; however, now that he is a toddler, it is too difficult to breastfeed him that way. Another breastfeeding mother, whom I consider a friend, chose to use a cloth shield to cover her baby while breastfeeding in public and aggressively insisted that I use her shield when I started to breastfeed my son. I politely declined because I did not want to make my son uncomfortable by hiding his face in order to make others comfortable with public breastfeeding. I used to allow Brandon to pacify at my breast in order to continue to build my milk supply. Another well-intentioned but misinformed friend of mine insisted that I unlatch Brandon from my breast because she could see that he was finished, and many women instructed me to use a pacifier instead of letting him pacify at the breast. Sucking on a pacifier requires different sucking techniques than suckling at the breast. Allowing a child to suck on a pacifier regularly can adversely affect a mother’s breast milk supply. One study showed that mothers who gave their babies pacifiers regularly had to wean sooner than those who did not. Pacifying at the breast means more milk for the baby.46

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On several occasions during visits to the pediatrician, the receptionist would offer me the office bathroom when I wanted to breastfeed my son. I thought to myself, how would you like to have your meals served in the bathroom? Babies are people, too, and deserve a decent place for their meals! Breast milk itself seems to have become sexualized as “dirty” and comparable to other fluids that we excrete; thus people assume that mothers who breastfeed should be relegated to public bathrooms.47 Experiences like these often discourage many mothers from breastfeeding, not only in public but also at all! The misinformation that these comments promote also fosters embarrassment and shame among breastfeeding mothers, who sometimes lack accurate information to counter such claims.48 My feminist beliefs about my body and my maternal rights, along with accurate information and support from the La Leche League, helped me confidently withstand the pressures that could have outweighed my basic human right to breastfeed whenever and wherever necessary. Breastfeeding on Demand versus a Time Schedule I follow the La Leche League’s suggestion that breastfeeding be viewed as a relational process in which mother and baby take their cues and habits reciprocally from each other, rather than from outside experts.49 I allow my baby’s interests and responses to determine the length of a breastfeeding session; therefore, I breastfeed on demand. A pediatrician once told me that I should not breastfeed on demand but every two hours and only 5 to 10 minutes on each breast, with no nighttime feedings. I take the view that no timetable can tell me how often I should breastfeed my baby. Many women allow themselves to be guided by erroneous beliefs that are nevertheless promoted by medical personnel.50 Most of these beliefs teach women to distrust their own experience and interpretation of their bodies.51 Breastfeeding and Pain A registered nurse warned that I should not breastfeed because it is painful and difficult to sustain for a long period of time. My La Leche League members taught me that if breastfeeding is painful, something is wrong. The baby may be sucking improperly, or you may be incorrectly positioning the baby at the breast.52 A relative told me to use alcohol to clean my nipples, but alcohol causes dry, cracked nipples that can be painful. The glands that surround the nipple secrete a substance that lubricates the skin and discourages bacteria growth.53 Bathing in plain water is all that is necessary for your nipples because soap on the nipples can also remove natural protective oils and produce cracking.54

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Breastfed versus Bottle Fed My neighbor said that breast milk is not enough to feed a baby. Breast milk is more than enough for the baby because it provides many nutrients and antibodies that cannot be identically duplicated in manufactured formula products. Breast milk builds the baby’s immune system both short term and long term. Furthermore, breast milk can provide all that babies need to grow, until solids are introduced.55 Artificial infant-feeding products cannot duplicate the entire rich mix of nutrients and biologically active substances manufactured in mothers’ breasts.56 Many people suggested that bottle feeding with formula would be easier than breastfeeding and would allow my husband an opportunity to feed the baby also. Bottle feeding is not necessarily easier. One has to buy, clean, store, sterilize, and fill bottles. One also has to buy, mix, and heat formulas. I believe strongly in shared parenting, so, I emphasize other ways that my husband can bond with our son besides feeding him, such as baby massages, baths, dressing, reading, playing, cuddling, calming, and carrying him. As a parenting team, each of us has important yet unique contributions to make to our child’s development.57 Baby-Led Weaning Breastfeeding a toddler, compared to a newborn, makes one even more susceptible to unsolicited and insensitive comments about breastfeeding from misinformed others. A relative debated with me about the best age for weaning my son. Her source of information was a woman on a television talk show who was breastfeeding her six-year-old! This relative, annoyingly and sarcastically, commented that she hoped I was not going to end up on a talk show regarding this issue in the future. A stranger once said, “Wait until he gets teeth, then you will stop breastfeeding!” My thought was, When do people use teeth when they drink? Another stranger volunteered, “When he starts walking you need to stop breastfeeding.” Every home visit with family and friends meant enduring questions such as, “Are you still breastfeeding that boy? When are you going to give him some real food?” Breastfeeding benefits a toddler (defined as a child who is just beginning to walk until about age three) because human milk continues to provide immunities, vitamins, and enzymes that he or she needs. Breastfeeding beyond infancy is referred to as “extended breastfeeding” and is associated with fewer childhood illnesses.58 Moreover, it can it can also have a calming effect on a child who is overly fatigued and fussy. The League recommends that weaning be a child-led process.59 Our culture today has geared us to thinking that all babies should be off the breast at a certain age and at an early age. However, this is

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far from the case in the majority of other cultures.60 Since cultural expectations about weaning vary, anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler decided to conduct cross-cultural research into the natural weaning age for humans and found that weaning occurs between ages three and seven.61 My son, who continues to enjoy breastfeeding at 22 months, is actually in the process of weaning daily and no longer feeds at night since I introduced solid foods and juices into his diet.

A Learned Art, a Human Right, and a Benefit to Mother and Child Breastfeeding did not come as easily as I had expected. There is ample evidence from mothers and anthropological studies that breastfeeding—like any other social behavior—must be learned through observation and information. I do not wish to romanticize breastfeeding or downplay some of the real challenges I faced that temporarily discouraged me in my early efforts. Similar to the experiences of the seven founders of the League, I overcame a variety of difficulties before I was able to breastfeed with ease and confidence. One of the La Leche League leaders, who was also a nurse, came to my home several times to assist me in the process. During my early days of breastfeeding, Brandon was not getting enough milk and lost weight.62 Eventually, my husband and I charted his feedings and soiled diapers for three weeks to make sure he was getting enough nourishment from breast milk. During this time period I pumped my breasts and had to supplement his feedings with a bottle. Supplemental feedings do not necessarily mean bottle feeding. In fact, using artificial nipples often makes it harder for the baby to learn how to breastfeed effectively. During the ordeal when Brandon lost weight, he also became nipple confused, because we initially supplemented feedings with the bottle.63 Therefore, I decided to discontinue bottle feeding abruptly and to use alternatives recommended by my La Leche League leaders. I pumped my breasts and put the milk into a special cup. I tried using an eyedropper for feeding and a syringe with a tube for finger feeding. The syringe with the tube was the best alternative out of the three. My husband was happy to be able to “finger feed” Brandon during this transitional period. Shortly thereafter, I was finally able to breastfeed successfully and with ease. After experiencing frustration caused by unsupportive friends and relatives, coupled with my initial challenges, I had to mentally revisit why I wanted to breastfeed and how it would benefit my child and me. These reminders helped me confidently recommit to my plans when I felt discouraged. For instance, I strongly agree with feminist scholar and breastfeeding mother Bernice Hausman when she advocates that “breastfeeding must be a real choice for women rather than a practice that two-thirds of women try after birth and most often abandon within six months” due to lack of individual and institutional support.64

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Another breastfeeding mother and feminist, anthropologist Penny Van Esterik, helped me understand why breastfeeding is my right, in fact, a human right that every woman should possess if she wants to breastfeed.65 In addition, I agree with other feminists who emphasize that the politics of breastfeeding involve more than “choice” and mere “ideological preference.” Such politics involve real health issues that put certain mothers and certain children at risk disproportionately, particularly working-class African American mothers.66 Overall disparities within the broader healthcare system negatively affect Black women’s access to prenatal information about breastfeeding benefits.67 Ignoring the scientific evidence for the health benefits of breastfeeding can place Black mothers’ and their children’s health at risk given our disproportionately high rates of low birth weight, infant mortality, and infant morbidity.68 However, my purpose is not to judge any mothers or to engage in any form of moralizing about their choices. I do not believe that women who choose not to breastfeed should be made to feel guilty. Nor do I believe that women who do choose to breastfeed should be harassed by the public. I am simply sharing the information that helped me make and maintain my commitment to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding benefited me as a mother. It supported my preference for safe contraception that does not affect the quality and quantity of my breast milk. When I was breastfeeding totally—not giving solid foods or any formula supplements—my menstrual periods were delayed for about 6 months.69 Also, breastfeeding eliminated the need for me to diet in order to lose the extra weight I had gained during pregnancy, because breastfeeding uses up extra calories, changes a mother’s metabolism, and thereby enables a mother to lose weight gradually. Breastfeeding is also associated with reducing women’s risk of certain health problems such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, urinary tract infections, and osteoporosis.70 I also chose to breastfeed because of several benefits to my son. First, I wanted to provide Brandon with the best possible infant food for superior nutrition, and no product has ever been as time-tested as mother’s milk.71 Breastfeeding promotes jaw and facial development as the baby physically learns to suck in a manner that allows latching onto the breast.72 Breast milk safeguards a baby against certain allergies, inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria (thereby protecting against certain infections), and enhances the baby’s brain and nervous system development.73 Finally, breastfeeding became not only a way to feed my son but also a way to comfort and express my love for him.

Breastfeeding an Extra Special Child A month after Brandon’s first birthday, he was diagnosed with Down syndrome, a genetic condition where erroneous chromosome division during meiosis results

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in the fertilized egg having three number 21 chromosomes instead of 2.74 My husband and I were genuinely surprised to receive this information and, initially, found it very difficult to accept. Brandon does not have any physical health problems and only three physical features (depressed nose bridge, low muscle tone in the oral facial area, and a gap between first and second toe) normally associated with Down syndrome. Although most children who have Down syndrome are characterized as having “Mongoloid type” features, Brandon’s features are a part of his heritage because he is the offspring of an Asian (Thai) father and an African American mother.75 He basically looks like his Asian father. He has developmental delays of only a few months (instead of a few years) in gross and fine motor, cognitive, and self-help skills.76 There are immeasurable benefits of breastfeeding Brandon given his special needs. Babies with Down syndrome have a greater susceptibility to infections, so the immunity factors in breast milk are especially valuable. Breastfeeding also strengthens the low muscle tone of Brandon’s oral facial muscles, thereby facilitating the development of his speech to offset his risk for delays in this area. Recent studies provide strong evidence that breastfeeding enhances cognitive development for babies with special developmental needs and might well make the difference between independent living and institutionalization in the future.77 Brandon’s special needs have added to my duties as a stay-at-home mom, which now include weekly physical, occupational, and speech therapy appointments, infant specialist doctor appointments, play groups, and support groups. In addition, I must continuously advocate for Brandon’s special mental and physical health needs with medical specialists and agencies that operate within a tedious culture of bureaucracy. My child has Down syndrome; he is not Down syndrome. He is a baby who happens to have an extra chromosome. I like how author Beverly Beckham describes her granddaughter, Lucy, who has Down syndrome; she says, “[T]his extra chromosome helps others see the extra good in her.” Beckham states, “In most cases it’s good to have an extra something in life. An extra tire in case one goes flat. An extra change of clothes in case you get rained on.”78 I feel this way about my son; he is truly an extra special and precious gift.

Breastfeeding as a Black Feminist and Human Rights Issue The complexities surrounding breastfeeding have resulted in the lack of a single consistent position on the issue from either White or Black feminist perspectives. However, I agree with Van Esterik who suggests that breastfeeding is a feminist issue, as well as a human rights issue, because under certain circumstances it encourages women’s self-reliance, confirms a woman’s power to control her

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body, encourages solidarity among women, requires a new interpretation of women’s work, and challenges models that treat women solely as consumers and sex objects.79 Although breastfeeding advocacy runs the risk of perpetuating narrow and traditionally discriminatory views of women and women’s roles, when the complexities of breastfeeding politics are clearly outlined, breastfeeding advocacy challenges current institutional and individual social practices that work to subordinate mothers’ choices and actions internationally. As a result, framing breastfeeding work as a human rights issue and making it a priority on Black feminist reproductive rights agendas can potentially improve conditions for all women, whether they engage in “mother work” or other work. For example, conditions conducive to successful breastfeeding (1) require structural changes in women’s economic and social status; (2) redefine labor from a feminist perspective in ways that elevate the value of women’s reproductive and wage-earning productive work; (3) facilitates work policies that emphasize family leave, flexible work hours, and safe working conditions; (4) teaches women to value their own capacities for nourishing their infants rather than becoming unnecessarily dependent on expensive commercial options; and (5) challenges prevailing perceptions of women’s bodies, particularly their breasts, as mere sexual objects.80 Of course, breastfeeding as an act is no cure-all for the subordination of women. However, by examining breastfeeding politics, feminists can uncover patriarchal factors that surround the meaning of women’s bodies, the authority of science, and the social value of motherhood in contemporary culture.81 Furthermore, promoting breastfeeding does not have to mean promoting an outmoded traditionalist (and thus oppressive) notion of domesticity for women, as some feminist critics have suggested. In my opinion, the reproductive work of mothers in the home should not be minimized, and its physical costs (and benefits) should be recognized and its value emphasized. The common perception of women who stay at home in order to engage in parental nurturing is that feminists do not have their interests at heart. Feminist perspectives need to delineate clearly how the interests and work of breastfeeding mothers are congruent with a feminist definition of labor that includes “mother” as a model of a worker.82 Viewing breastfeeding as another form of work, “reproductive work,” counters the patriarchal and judgmental view of breastfeeding as merely a “mother’s duty” and avoids inducing guilt in mothers who do not or cannot breastfeed.83 Some feminists believe that we should not advocate breastfeeding if we want to promote an equal rights agenda (the rationale being that the more we show we are like men, the more we are likely to be accepted as equal) in order to avoid emphasizing biological differences between men and women. I believe there is a way to respect mothers’ experiences and rights without denying some of the biological differences between men and women and by carefully articulating the heavier reproductive burden that women face compared to men—even

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when certain social and financial resources are available to the family as a whole. However, one cannot deny that breastfeeding is definitely facilitated by flexible work arrangements, social and financial resources, and supportive professional and kinship networks.84 Perhaps, rather than merely pointing out and condemning women who currently have access to such privileges, feminists should insist that all mothers and children have access to such resources. Material support such as household help, information about how to manage breastfeeding difficulties, and even money to buy or rent a breast pump or to extend maternity leave are as crucial to successful breastfeeding as educating women about its benefits.85 Black women, other women of color, and working-class women often lack resources to engage in successful breastfeeding even though they may recognize its health benefits. In addition, more diversified breastfeeding promotion approaches, similar to that adopted by organizations such as the African American Breastfeeding Alliance, are needed; they should include culture-specific information regarding health risks and benefits, attitudes, and family and work support networks that affect breastfeeding as well as other reproductive health outcomes of underserved women.86 Although my new role as a feminist mother can sometimes be exhausting, for the most part, I have found the experience very fulfilling and have learned about both oppression and resistance as a Black woman from another vantage point in life. I plan to contribute more directly to the family income in the future, but now my priority is my son while he is at a critical stage in his life development. Thanks to a progressive and supportive husband, the La Leche League, and an evergrowing feminist consciousness, I have learned to organize rather than agonize over the politics I have experienced as a stay-athome breastfeeding mother!

Notes 1. Browne, I., 1999, Latinas and African American Women at Work: Race, Gender and Economic Inequality (New York: Sage). 2. Amott, T., and J. Matthaei, 1996, Race, Gender, Work (Boston: South End); Williams, R., 2002, “Getting Paid: Black Women Economists Reflect on Women and Work,” in Sister Circle: Black Women and Work, ed. S. Harley and the Black Women and Work Collective (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press) 84–100. 3. For a comprehensive study summarizing various trends and influences regarding work opportunities for Black women, see Woody, B., 1992, Black Women in the Workplace: Impacts of Structural Change in the Economy (New York: Greenwood). 4. I follow the La Leche League practice in the spelling of breastfeeding, breast milk, and bottle feeding. 5. Avery, B. 1990. “Breathing Life into Ourselves: The Evolution of the National Black Women’s Health Project,” in The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves,” ed. E. C. White (Seattle: Seal), 4–10.

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6. Weschler, T., 2002, Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health (New York: HarperCollins); Winstein, M., 1991, Your Fertility Signals: Using Them to Achieve or Avoid Pregnancy Naturally (St. Louis: Smooth Stone). 7. Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, 1998, Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century: A Book by and for Women (New York: Touchstone); Villarosa, L., 1994, Body and Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being (New York: Perennial). 8. Dienhart, A., 1998, Reshaping Fatherhood: The Social Construction of Shared Parenting (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). 9. The League is not allied with any other cause or movement because its founders believed that people who supported good mothering might reject the League if it seemed to be a part of another movement. However, League members and feminists have confronted many of the same issues given their similar focus on women’s many roles. See Ward, J. D., 2000, La Leche League: At the Crossroads of Medicine, Feminism, and Religion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). 10. La Leche League International, 1997, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (Franklin Park, IL: La Leche League International), 19. 11. Ibid., 6. 12. Hausman, B. L., 2003, Mother’s Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture (New York: Routledge), 189–96.; Van Esterik, P. “Breastfeeding: A Feminist Issue.” See http://www.parentingweb.com/lounge/WABA_bf_fem.htm. Retrieved January 21, 2009. 13. Maher, V., ed., 1992, The Anthropology of Breast Feeding: Natural Law or Social Construct (Oxford: Berg). 14. Ward 2000, 29–45; Yalom, M., 1997, A History of the Breast (New York: Knopf), 205–40. 15. Ward 2000, 32–33. 16. Ibid., 44–45. 17. Ibid., 173–79; Blum, L., 1999, At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States (Boston: Beacon). 18. Van Esterik, P., 1989, Beyond the Breast-Bottle Controversy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press), 72. 19. Yalom 1997, 123–25. 20. Hausman 2003, 44–45. 21. Blum 1999, 171. 22. Hausman 2003, 45, 225. 23. Blum 1999, 167–72. 24. Hausman 2003, 225. 25. Van Esterik, P. “Breastfeeding: A Feminist Issue.” See http://www.parentingweb.com/lounge/WABA_bf_fem.htm. Retrieved January 21, 2009. 26. Hausman 2003, 26–28. 27. Blum 1999, 167–79, 192–201. 28. Ibid. 29. Hausman 2003, 225.

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30. Roberts, D., 1997, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Random House). 31. Galtry, J., 1997, “Suckling and Silence in the USA: The Costs and Benefits of Breastfeeding,” Feminist Economics 3(3): 1–24. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. La Leche League International, 1997, 381–93. 35. Ibid. 36. Ward 2003, 8–10. 37. Hausman 2003, 13. 38. For more information on breastfeeding legislation see http://www.llli.org/Law/ Lawbills.html. Retrieved January 21, 2009. 39. For interesting conceptions of the “liberated breast” versus the solely eroticized breast in Western culture see Yalom 1997, 241–74. 40. Yalom 1997, 3–8. 41. Blum 1999, 127–33. 42. Ibid., 192–98. 43. For an in depth discussion of Black women’s preoccupation with “the politics of respectability,” see White, E. F., 2001, Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 44. 44. La Leche League 1997, 377. 45. Blum 1999, 169–70. 46. La Leche League 1997, 73–74. 47. Blum 1999, 41; Van Esterik 1989, 72–74. 48. Hausman 2003, 79–84. 49. Blum 1999, 65; La Leche League 1997, 70–73; Ward 2003, 56–58. 50. Hausman 2003, 189–90; Ward 2003, 29–45. 51. Hausman 2003, 190. 52. La Leche League 1997, 25, 113–34. 53. Ibid., 57. 54. Ibid., 118. 55. Ibid., 335–60. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 187–97. 58. Ibid., 248–50. 59. Ibid., 245–50; Blum 1999, 65. 60. Dettwyler, K. A., 1995, “A Time to Wean: The Hominid Blueprint for the Natural Age of Weaning in Modern Human Populations,” in Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives, ed. P. Stuart-Macadam and K. A. Dettwyler (New York: de Gruyter), 39–74. 61. Detwyler 1995. 62. Brandon was born with tongue thrust, a condition in which the tongue is thrust forward, causing the baby to develop an incorrect way of swallowing. Because of his tongue thrust, I could not insert my breast into his mouth. As a result, Brandon was not latched onto the breast properly and was not getting enough milk for nourishment.

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Brandon lost 5% of his birth weight. Our pediatrician immediately put Brandon on formula (supplemental feeding) for a week in order to increase his weight and for nourishment while I built up my milk supply (my milk had decreased in supply due to improper latching.Breast milk amount is based upon supply and demand dynamics; a baby who is not sucking well cannot build up the mother’s milk supply to meet his needs). Once I built up my milk supply by pumping my breasts with a rented hospital-grade pump, the tongue thrust corrected itself. 63. Brandon experienced nipple confusion because sucking from a bottle requires a different technique and can interfere with a baby’s ability to suck effectively at the breast. Once Brandon lost the habit of sucking on a bottle, I taught him how to suckle from the breast. “Finger-feeding” aided in the transition from the bottle back to the breast. 64. Hausman 2003, 5. 65. Van Esterik, P. “Breastfeeding: A Feminist Issue.” See http://www.parentingweb.com/lounge/WABA_bf_fem.htm. Retrieved January 21, 2009. 66. Galtry 1993; Hausman 2003, 220–27. 67. Kogan, M. D., M. Kotechuck, G. Alexander, and W. Johnson, 1994, “Racial Disparities in Reported Prenatal Care Advice from Health Care Providers,” American Journal of Public Health, 84(1): 82–88. 68. Hausman 2003, 220–27. 69. La Leche League 1997, 364–65. 70. Ibid., 7. 71. Hausman 2003, 16–21. 72. Ibid., 17. 73. The United States Department of Health and Human Services HHS Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding lists seven specific infections that are lower in incidence or severity in breastfed infants in comparison to formula fed infants: diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, otitis media, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, necrotizing enterocolitis, and invasive bacterial infections. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health, 2000, HHS Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding (Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services), 10. 74. Kozma, C., 1995, “What Is Down Syndrome, Babies with Down Syndrome,” in A New Parents’ Guide, ed., K. Stray-Gundersen (Bethesda, MD, Woodbine House), 9. 75. Ibid., 17–21. 76. Ibid., 151–56. 77. Hausman 2003, 20; see also Hausman’s endnotes 19 and 21, p. 254. 78. Beckham, B., 2007. “Baby Steps Came in Her Own Time,” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs, ed. J. Canfield, M. Hansen, H. McNamara, and K. Simmons (Deerfield, FL: Health Communications), 130–32. 79. Van Esterik 1989, 67–107. 80. Ibid., 69. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid., 76. 83. Ibid. 84. Hausman 2003, 189–228. 85. Ibid. 86. For the website of the African American Breastfeeding Alliance, Inc. see http://www.aabaonline.com. Retrieved January 21, 2009.

Chapter 2

Bringing Up Daddy A Black Feminist Fatherhood

Mark Anthony Neal

My wife, Gloria, and I were heartbroken. I was at a conference in Houston when she finally got through to me by cell phone to tell me the news that all potential adoptive parents dread. Folk privy to the adoption process are all too familiar with the possibility that at the last hour, a woman, who months earlier agreed to give her unborn child up for adoption, will take one look at her newborn baby and change her mind. My wife and I had kept our impending adoption a secret from just about everyone, including parents, close friends, and even our then four-year-old daughter, for that very reason. So here I was alone, on the brink of tears, walking through an FAO Schwarz toy store in Houston, looking at the toys and stuffed animals I wasn’t going to buy for our newborn daughter. I was also relieved. Camille Monet, as we had planned to name the newborn girl, was to be our second adopted child. My wife and I had talked for some time about adopting a second child, but the reality was that I wasn’t looking forward to having another baby in the house. The often-prohibitive cost of adoption conspired to keep Misha Gabrielle our only child, as I looked forward to giving her all of the love and support that comes with being an only child (as I was). My ambivalence about adopting a second child caused me to revisit my hesitancy to adopt four years earlier. My wife and I were among the millions of couples whose difficulties with conception meant hours of testing, manufactured copulation, and the prospect of costly in vitro fertilization, none of which guaranteed that we would become pregnant. Though I had resisted (ignored really) my wife’s suggestion that we consider adoption, I finally relented and agreed to take a “look see” at the process. Adoption was always a last resort and one that I was prepared to be just

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that, as we waited for the research around in vitro fertilization to improve to the point that it was more of a viable option for us. In our early thirties then, my wife was unwilling to wait and in one tear-filled episode finally convinced me that adoption was our only option. At the time I guess I was like so many Black men, who viewed the process of getting a woman pregnant as an affirmation of masculinity—think of how many Black men describe their kids as their seeds—particularly in a society that has historically denied us the fullest expression of our masculinity. Thus the idea that I couldn’t produce “seed” somehow meant that something was wrong with me, that I was less than a man. As Thaddeus Goodavage rhetorically asks about the impact of adoption on Black men, “How does a Black man, already disaffirmed and demasculated by the wider society, affirm his own manhood when he cannot create, produce, or sustain anything, even children?1 As long as we didn’t adopt, I could always say that our childlessness was a “lifestyle choice.” My visions of fatherhood, and manhood for that matter, were naturally influenced by the Black man I called “Daddy.” Old-school in every sense of the word, from his Georgia-bred slowness and assortment of Old Spice bottles, to the way he counted his money (in the dark while my mother and I slept), I can’t say that my father taught me anything about fatherhood other than the fact that a good father—a good man—put in a day’s work and provided for his family. Legal scholar Nancy E. Dowd observes that “The most critical way of proving one’s masculinity is by being an economic provider, and it is precisely in that respect that Black men are denied the means to be men in traditional terms.”2 And that was indeed a mantra for my father, who most of my childhood trekked three hours back and forth to work every day from the Bronx to Brooklyn, where he worked 12-hour days, 6 days a week, as a short-order cook and dishwasher at a combination drugstore and grill in Crown Heights. On most days, Daddy was out of the house before I woke and didn’t get home until I was fast asleep. Save Friday and Saturday nights in the summer when he allowed me to walk with him to the bodega to get a beer, cigarettes, pork rinds, and the Hostess cupcakes I craved and the Sunday mornings when he shared the sounds of the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Dixie Hummingbirds, B. B. King, and Bobby “Blue” Bland with me and allowed me to help him with Sunday morning breakfast, I can’t say that I remember my father as a parenting presence. Certainly he was of a generation of men who accepted that things like changing diapers, boiling bottles, and making formula was considered women’s work. And my mother held out no other expectations of him, save the occasional request to mop the kitchen floor or wash the dishes. Because adoption caused me to reassess my ideas of what Black manhood meant—as if our only value in the world was to get women pregnant, make money, and provide patriarchal leadership in our families and communities—I was also forced to reconsider what roles fathers play in the parenting process.

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Sociologist Sandra Walker acknowledges, “When children see their father wash dishes, clothes, and become involved in school activities, it presents a broader and more positive picture of what a Black man can be.”3 Though I had considered myself a feminist long before I became a father, it was the birth and adoption of my daughter that forced me to understand that a shared parenting process was as important as notions that women should get equal pay for equal work. We give children very little credit for being able to discern that the division of labor between “Mommy” and “Daddy” in the household is often reflective of the value accorded Mommy and Daddy in the real world. Thus a woman’s work is that of the professional nurturer, whether at home, at childcare facilities, primary schooling, or in the workforce. Examining the impact that childcare activities can have on men, sociologist Scott Coltrane argues that “Given women’s biological capacity to bear and nurse children, men’s participation in early childcare necessarily entails a minimum level of male-female cooperation. Sharing child-rearing tasks probably creates expectations for male-female cooperation in other, more public activities and may enhance women’s opportunities to exercise public authority.”4 Not only does the sharing of childcare activities help provide a more egalitarian view of how gender functions in the “real” world, but it also has the potential to help young children embrace those views. My daughter, for example, has never expressed the idea that there are things that “Daddy does” or “Mommy does,” because she sees us sharing or rotating everyday childcare activities, though that hasn’t kept her from expressing a preference for my wife’s cooking (“Daddy, you always make chicken!”). It certainly wasn’t easy. I’ve never been dutiful about picking up after myself, and my wife has always had to prod me (sometimes under threats of violence) to do things such as mop the kitchen floor or even take out the trash. And I guess that somewhere in my upbringing I accepted that housework, including childcare, was the kind of domestic work that was naturally assigned to women in the house. Virtually every family-oriented television show I’ve watched over the last 38 years, from I Love Lucy to Roseanne confirms the perception that women are naturally endowed domestics, given some support to my mother’s quips during my childhood that she was more than a “glorified maid.” Sociologists Coltrane and Masako Ishii-Kuntz suggest that there are specific contexts when men begin to wrap their heads around the concept of shared domestic work, notably when husbands and wives delay having children and “in response to the husband’s ideology and time availability.” According to the researchers, “husbands’ less traditional gender/family ideology and fewer employment hours were strong predictors of their performing more mundane and routine family work.”5 In the context of my own life my views as a feminist and my career as a writer and academic provided the circumstances in which I was at least open to the idea of sharing “mundane” housework when my wife and I first decided to adopt.

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In steps the brown-skinned shortie, whom we affectionately referred to as the “baby-girl diva” after spending a few short months with her. No one ever believes our story, but less than 1 month (25 days officially) from the time we walked into the adoption agency, got a few brochures, and took home an application, we were brining 17-day-old Misha Gabrielle into our home. The quickness of the adoption process is in part due to that tragic state of Black adoption: potential White parents often wait as long as 3 years (hence the sudden focus on interracial adoption, particularly of the Asian newborns), while newborn Black babies often languish for months in foster care until adoptive parents are found. Needless to say, we were (especially me) absolutely unprepared for parenthood. To be honest, I had come to enjoy the freedom that our childless existence allowed, and as an up-and-coming Black scholar, I relished the time that I could spend in Starbucks getting my “read and write” on. My wife sensed very early after we were made aware of Misha’s birth and the possibility that we could adopt her, that I was hesitant and issued to me an ultimatum that shall remain unrepeated (my wife has a gift for witty venom). Misha Gabrielle was born a preemie, coming into the world three weeks before she was supposed to be here. I was in the car one day listening to N’dea Davenport’s “Placement for the Baby” (a song about adoption whose lyrics I really hadn’t listened closely to), and I literally broke down thinking about what kind of spirit this baby girl possessed that she had willed herself into the world three weeks early. It’s like she knew we were the adoptive parents she was supposed to be with and forced herself into the world before schedule, just so we would be the ones to adopt her. It would be the first glimpse that I would have of the baby-girl diva’s independent spirit and the first of many life lessons that she would teach me during her early years. In the classic narratives associated with adoption, it is always about what the adoptive parents bring to the table, as they are often seen as “rescuing” a child, particularly Black children, from a life of poverty and neglect. But with Misha Gabrielle it has always been about what she brings to the table. I can honestly say that she has fundamentally changed my life. The very spirit that brought her into the world early, she brought to her role as my daughter as if it was her ordained duty to make me an engaged father and a better man. But Misha’s impact on me was much deeper than that. Yes she would make me a better man, but she also saved my life. For more than a decade I had suffered with what could only be described as an earth-shattering snore. Soon that snoring was accompanied by sudden waking episodes during my nighttime sleep and morning headaches. It wasn’t until I began inexplicably falling asleep during the course of the day that I gave any thought to the fact that perhaps something was awry. By the time Misha was in the mix I was deep in the throes of a ginseng addiction, somehow believing that my sleeping and waking problems were the product of my undernourishing my over-250-

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pound frame. Unbeknownst to me at the time, these were all the classic signs of sleep apnea (apnea is Greek for “without breath”), a condition in which folks awake suddenly from their sleep several times a night after they have stopped breathing for small periods of time, often as long as a minute. The disease causes a restless sleep, which the body attempts to compensate for during the course of the day, while those who suffer from the disease sit quietly behind a desk, watch TV on the couch, or sometimes tragically are behind the wheels of moving vehicles. According to the American Sleep Apnea Association an estimated 10 million Americans have unrecognized sleep apnea.6 What this all meant for me was that when my sleep apnea was combined with the general sleeplessness that comes with having a newborn in the house, I was for all intents a walking zombie. I have vivid memories of two early morning feedings with my daughter, then still very much an infant, when I fell asleep only to awaken a half-hour later with her fast asleep on the floor where I had apparently dropped her. (I shared that story with my wife for the first time about a year ago). At four or five months old my rather precocious daughter was apparently already hip to the deal and would often smack me across the face when I fell asleep while we played on the couch. The stories of me falling asleep during midconversation or snoring loud enough to be heard across the street were humorous at the time, but were no longer funny when my still-undiagnosed sleep apnea often caused me to doze off while behind the wheel of the car. As my daughter’s childcare was five minutes from the campus where I taught at the time, it meant that most often she was in the car with me as I struggled to stay awake. It was after a small fender-bender that I finally got serious about the sleep problem and went to the local sleep center to be tested. Shortly thereafter, I was hooked up to an array of apparatuses, and my sleep was monitored overnight. The morning after my sleep patterns were monitored, the attending technician informed me that I had had seven hundred apneic events: I had stopped breathing 700 times during the course of a six-hour “sleep.” In other words, I had a severe case of sleep apnea, one that if left untreated would likely cause me to have a heart attack or stroke while still in my early 30s. Sleep apnea is caused when air passages are closed during sleep, causing those afflicted with the condition to gasp for air, hence the loud snoring sounds and sudden waking. Sleep apnea is generally caused by obesity. Men, people with large necks, and young African Americans are part of the likely at-risk group. Besides daytime drowsiness, there is a noticeable dropoff in motor skills, short-term memory, and the development of a less-than-engaging personal disposition. Together for more than 10 years, my wife often commented, at the time, that I had changed. A few months after my sleep test I began receiving treatment for my sleep apnea. Treatment meant wearing a mask to bed, even during quick naps. The mask is connected to a machine known as a CPAP

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(continuous positive airway pressure), which pushes air into my nose, keeping my air passages open and allowing me to have a restful sleep. The machine is small enough to fit in a shoulder bag, thus easy to travel with. When on business trips, very often the first thing I do when I get to a hotel is to identify an outlet close to the bed to plug in my CPAP. The morning after I was first hooked up to the CPAP I remember telling my wife that it was like I had been born again. My doctor at the sleep center cautioned that a significant number of folks don’t recover sufficiently because they do not consistently use the machine because of discomfort and other factors, including forgetfulness. I can honestly say that after that first night of sleep, I can’t imagine ever being without my CPAP. In the months after I began treatment it was like Misha and I were both newborns trying to make sense of the world. In my mind, I should have died while Misha was still a baby, but my life was saved by a little brown girl who willed herself into the world and then willed herself into her daddy’s heart. What did my wife and I bring to the table? Yeah, we brought a stable home and a loving environment, but it was my daughter who brought me life. It was in the context of all of these events that I really began to take the idea of fatherhood, even in a traditional sense, very seriously. The demands of my wife’s own professional career often meant that I couldn’t simply see myself as a part-time baby-sitter (as one brother once described spending time with his kids) or the one who just picked up our daughter from school—the kinds of things that most fathers do regularly at one time or another—but as a conurturer. I remember the very first day my wife left me alone with Misha. Gloria had returned to work after taking a month-long maternity leave, and we decided that the days that I didn’t teach, I would stay home with Misha instead of taking her to daycare. I remember meticulously picking out the music that I wanted her to listen to as we sat at home that day, beginning with Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “You’re All I Need to Get By” which I quietly sung in her tiny ear. Truth be told, once the romance died off, it was something that I could not sustain (the sleep apnea was kicking my ass), and months later Misha was in daycare full-time. Nevertheless, for most of my daughter’s life I have prepared the family dinner, done the grocery shopping, given her nightly baths, and put her down to sleep at night, things I can rarely remember my own father doing. Granted my dad’s work schedule made such things impossible, but as I noted, there was never an expectation that he would be a more engaged parent. Both my parents were the products of a generation of people who really believed that Black men were incapable of playing such a role, so even when those women felt imposed upon at times, there was little drama. I’m not saying that all Black families functioned this way 30 years ago, but it was clearly an accepted trend. The fact that so many Black fathers weren’t expected to be involved fathers speaks to an underlying “father bias” that exists in the larger society and

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often discourages men from playing such roles. In their book Throwaway Dads, child psychologists Ross D. Parke and Armin A. Brott observe that stereotypes that “Dads are lazy, dangerous, biologically unfit or deadbeats powerfully shape our impressions about fathers.”7 The authors also note that within children’s literature, “Fathers, if they’re shown at all, are generally portrayed as indifferent, uncaring, buffoonish characters who do little more than come home late after work and bounce baby around for five minutes before putting her to bed.”8 For example, the very reason we find films such as Eddie Murphy’s Daddy Daycare so damn funny is because the idea that a group of men would run a childcare facility seems utterly preposterous. Yes, the men in the film were challenged to run a daycare facility, as any novice childcare worker would be regardless of gender; but the subtext of the film was that we found these men incapable of being engaged fathers. Because of my flexible work hours as a college professor and writer, I was often the one charged with daycare duty and sick days, and it was during those many, many hours riding around in my old Honda Accord listening to Veggie Tales tapes and the music of Lenny Kravitz, sitting in Starbucks reading Faith Ringgold picture books (Tar Beach in particular) or any of the books in David Kirk’s Miss Spider series (Miss Spider was adopted), or playing tackle in the living room that we formed the ultimate father-daughter bond. I began to refer to her as my “soul sister.” But it was also in this context that I began to deal firsthand with issues of “father bias.” I’ve found myself offended, for example, on those occasions that folk assume that the time I put in with and for my daughter is somehow an aberration. There are those times when I go into children’s clothing stores (Children’s Place is a favorite of mine) to buy a cute pair of shoes or a sweater for my daughter, and the salesperson will doggedly ask me if I need help (the assumption being that I couldn’t possibly know anything about children’s sizes, let alone the clothing size of my own child and no doubt complicated by the fact that I’m Black) or if I want a gift box, as if the only reason why a man would be in a store like that was because he was buying a gift. Then there are the daycare providers who never feel the need to share the intricacies of my daughter’s day but offer them gratuitously to my wife whenever she does pick up. In his book The Nurturing Father, Kyle D. Pruett observes the ways fathers are sometimes treated when they accompany their children to doctors’ appointments. As one pediatrician told Pruett, “I just thought the father was doing the ‘well-baby visit’ as an interested escort.”9 And then there are the subtleties, such as the general lack of babychanging stations in men’s public restrooms or the great drama of being the only man—and more often than not the only Black man—in a room full of mothers at my daughter’s various extracurricular activities. Political scientist and feminist dad Isaac Balbus recalls his feelings while accompanying his daughter once to her weekly playgroup: “I feared that a male would not be entirely welcome at an otherwise entirely female affair. This was ‘women’s space’ into which I was

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not inclined to intrude. . . . I was received cordially, but it seemed to me that there was little, if anything, to talk about.”10 And like Balbus, I am cordially received, but there is also a discomfort, likely informed by the fact that most of the White women who are in the room have rarely had a conversation with a Black man who wasn’t serving them in some capacity. Even worse are those folk who want to bestow the Nobel Peace Prize of parenting on me simply because they’ve never seen a Black man as a “good” parent. When the wife of one of my colleagues once remarked to me that she had never seen a man so attentive to his child, I wasn’t quite sure whether she was talking about men in general or Black men in particular, especially because I saw her husband as a man who was particularly attentive to his son. Throughout their book Parke and Brott often compare the stereotypical treatment that fathers face in American society to that of African Americans, arguing, “It’s humiliating, degrading, and ultimately psychologically damaging.”11 Although I would challenge the full weight of such a comparison, what does their analysis say about the ways that society views Black fathers? And I have to admit there are times that I have to resist patting myself on the back for doing the kinds of things that society would has us believe Black men were genetically challenged to do. What I do is not exceptional; it comes with the territory of being a parent in the 21st century. When I talk with many of my friends and colleagues who are fathers—half of my conversations with fellow “hip-hop scholar” S. Craig Watkins are about our daughters—or see the number of public figures who alter their lifestyles so that their children can be part of their professional lives, I realize that there are many Black men who are dramatically altering the larger society’s views of Black men as parents. One good example of this trend is baseball manager Dusty Baker and his relationship with his young son, Darren. When managing the San Francisco Giants a few years ago, Baker allowed the children of his players (most often boys) to have a visible presence in the clubhouse and in the dugout. The sons of a few of his players at the time, including Barry Bonds’s son, Nikolai, and Darren Baker, rotated as team batboys. In the eyes of many, the normally surly Bonds became human—even endearing—as he kissed Nikolai at home plate after hitting home runs. But it was Darren Baker, who was only 3 years old when he served as the Giants’ batboy in the last two months of 2002, who was the most endearing. But Dusty Baker’s parenting skills were called into question during the 2002 World Series, when Darren ran out on the field during a game. The young boy was saved from being in the middle of a possible collision at home plate, when the Giants’ J. T. Snow grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him out of danger. At the time of the incident Baker was 53 years old and less than a year removed from a bout with prostate cancer. Given his career, he understood he wasn’t always going to be around to be a regular presence in his young son’s life, so he instead chose to have his son come to “work” with

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him, particularly in the years before Darren was school age.12 The first thing Baker did, after the Giants lost the final game of the 2002 World Series was to reach down and console his crying son. It’s the kind of image we rarely see of Black fathers in American society. Unknown to many folks though, Baker’s decision to have Darren around may have also been in response to his own estranged relationship with his father earlier in his baseball career. Johnny Baker Sr. had been an influence on Dusty as a youth, often coaching him in Little League, but the two fell out when the younger Baker was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 1967 and signed a contract with the team against his father’s wishes. When his father attempted to challenge the signing in court, Dusty Baker cut his ties with him. As a 17 year old playing professional sports and being away from his family for the first time, Baker sought out another father figure, finding him in Henry Aaron. When Aaron went through a divorce and lamented about missing his children, Baker reevaluated his relationship with his father. According to sportswriter Tom Stanton, “For years, Baker had little or nothing to do with his father. He didn’t call him, and he didn’t include him in his life. . . . But seeing how much Aaron missed his children helped open his eyes, and it was one of the factors among several that led him to reconnect with his own father.”13 The weekend after the San Francisco Giants lost the 2002 World Series, Dusty Baker accompanied his then 77-yearold father to a Notre Dame football game, telling reporters, “It’s something he always wanted to do.”14 Dusty Baker’s relationship with his father and son highlights the significance we have placed in American society, and Black communities specifically, on the relationship between fathers and their sons and on fatherhood and masculinity. As Goodavage asserts, “Fathering a biological son provides a certain space to celebrate intergenerationally and genetically. In the elite context of biological father-son relationships, maleness—that sacrosanct quality grounded on falsely constructed notions of power—moves along uncriticized, as father essentially remakes himself in another who closely resembles him.”15 Journalist Jonetta Rose Barras who examines fatherlessness in the lives of Black women in her book Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? adds, “Most of the data on fatherlessness in America captures the effect on boys and men, little of it references girls and women.”16 I have no qualms about “celebrating” the impact that engaged Black fathers have on their sons, but in the spirit of the issues that I’ve consistently raised in this chapter, the “patriarchal” focus of those relationships often obscures the impact that Black fathers can and do have on their daughters. In this case I’m not just talking about little Black girls seeing their fathers as strong, protective, and responsive to their needs and the needs of their family and community—absolutely laudable attributes for any daughter to have access to—but a Black fatherhood that attempts to embody, to the extent that a man can, the realities of being a young Black girl and woman in

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American society. In other words I am calling for a Black feminist fatherhood that not only has an impact upon the lives of Black girls and women but also is tied to a reconsideration of what Black masculinity can be. In her book Redefining Fatherhood, Dowd argues, “Men’s identities as fathers do not exist in isolation from their identities as men. Indeed, that broader masculine identity arguably poses the most difficult challenge to a redefined and differently lived fatherhood. As long as masculinity identities nurture and care as feminine and unmanly, men’s socialization will work against them rather than for them.”17 Other scholars and psychologists also support the notion that fathers must embrace the idea of being nurturers. According to Pruett, “The only way for many men to find [a] nurturing quality in themselves is to stop restricting and strangling it—to allow it to come forward.” He adds, “A father may embrace his children, but until he embraces his own unique, irreplaceable value to them as a parent, he does not have as much in his arms as he thinks.”18 Psychologist Louise Silverstein takes it a step further, arguing that the “experience of nurturing and caring for young children has the power to change the cultural construction of masculinity, into something less coercive and oppressive for both women and men.”19 Many Black women have discussed the importance of their relationships with their fathers, particularly in the context of their fathers’ absences, because of work or other more dramatic issues. Qubilah Shabazz, who witnessed the assassination of her father, Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), in 1965, sweetly recalls her father’s presence, “He almost had me convinced that I was made up of brown sugar. . . . Every morning, he’d take my finger and stir his coffee with my finger. He said it was to sweeten it up.”20 In her book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist, journalist and critic Joan Morgan writes, “From the ages of four to seven I cried inconsolably each time my father left the house. No one knew quite what to make of this. I was too young to understand the dangers that lurked outside our South Bronx apartment and because my father didn’t keep odd, inexplicable hours, my tantrums were dismissed as the unbridled passion of first love.”21 Reflecting on her own childhood of fatherlessness, Jonetta Rose Barras wrote that a “girl abandoned by the first man in her life forever entertains powerful feelings of being unworthy or incapable of receiving any man’s love. Even when she receives love from another, she is constantly and intensely fearful of losing it. This is the anxiety, the pain, of losing one father. I had three fathers toss me aside.”22 In many ways, Rose Barra’s admission helps highlight the common thinking that young Black girls and women are in need of strong patriarchal figures in their live, but there are other examples of Black women who discuss the absence of Black fathers in their lives in ways that speak more broadly to the impact of nurturance. For example, even though the parents of literary scholar and activist Sharon Patricia Holland divorced when she was seven

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years old and her father, who was a doctor, wasn’t always a presence in her life, she recalls a time when “[t]his woman came in because her daughter was bleeding uncontrollably. My Dad treated her, called the ambulance and when the woman tried to pay him, he put his hand around hers and held her. I’ll never forget that moment—although I knew he wasn’t always there for me—I also knew that he was caring about Black women often left behind by their families, communities, and the District of Columbia. I carry that image of him with me and conjure it often—especially in those moments when I want to walk away, or when I want to be angry at him for something.”23 Morgan recalls a father who was “a serious womanizer” and “pretty chauvinistic in some senses when it came to mom, he totally didn’t support her dreams and visions of higher education, travel. . . . and expected total support for his. And I can honestly say he is the source of all of my abandonment and commitment issues of which I have many.” But she admits, “On the other hand, he adored me and there is something to be said for being a daddy’s girl. . . . And he really believed, or at least made me believe I could be Prime minister of Jamaica one day if I wanted and I think he would have really been thrilled if I’d gone to law school and went into politics. I NEVER got the message that I couldn’t do anything because I was a girl.”24 Parke and Brott argue that girls have “a lot to gain emotionally, socially, intellectually, and psychologically from greater contact with their fathers.”25 This point is reinforced by Nicole Johnson who says, “I can’t imagine who I would be without my father . . . [M]y father was my primary caretaker from about 2–4 [years of age] because he worked nights. . . . I consider my father one of my best friends.” She adds, “He has always been accessible to me. . . . He always told me the truth even when I didn’t want to hear it [and] he had faith in the way he raised me to go out in the world and not mess up too much.”26 Literary scholar Daphne Brooks is even more specific about the role her father, a public school administrator and activist, had on her intellectual development. According to Brooks, “[My father] was my first and most brilliant professor, and he taught me the meaning of words, of intellectual power, African-American history, literature, and culture. He recognized the critical importance of how Black people in particular might use language as a tool for transformation. . . . He and my mom gave me the courage to write, to dream, to imagine.” She adds, “I know that my voice as a scholar and as a writer is that of my father’s. Daddy always encouraged me to make my voice heard, to use my voice and my love of writing as an instrument for change.”27 One reason why nurturing fathers tend to have the kinds of impact on their daughters that both Johnson and Brooks’s fathers did on them is because they often offer their daughters a more open space to develop beyond traditional gender roles. For example, Coltrane notes that traditional fathers “tend to sex-type their children, overstimulate infants, and engage in rough and tumble play,” and “caretaking fathers tend

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to interact verbally with their children, allow for self-direction, and treat sons and daughters similarly.”28 Indeed, my wife often blames Misha’s verbosity on me: too many lectures attended, too many interviews overheard, and too many complex ruminations on the most simplistic of things. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I do want to recreate myself in my daughter, encouraging her love of words, art, music, and creativity. Black men seeing themselves as nurturing fathers is only the beginning of a process in which a Black feminist fatherhood can be realized. Using Pruett’s logic here, it’s about Black fathers seeing themselves as having something unique and important to offer to their daughters that will productively influence their lives as girls and later women, not just in terms of these girls developing a so-called masculine side, but in the very contexts in which they indeed see themselves as feminine. In many ways a Black feminist fatherhood is about coming to terms with the lived experiences of Black women and girls and imagining a world in which they can be empowered to be the kinds of women—people—they wish to be without the constraints of sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and racism. In one example, Black comedian Aaron Freeman, who describes himself as a “feminist parent” writes, “No daughter of mine will ever file a sexual harassment suit. A guy who messes [with] my daughter will not pay for her lawyer, but his own doctor. I want my little girls to be bad bitches. I want them to terrorize all the little boys in the neighborhood.”29 Although I might distance myself from the image that Freeman presents of his daughters inflicting terror on their male peers (this comes dangerously close to the very negative stereotypes of feminists circulating in the mainstream media), at its core Freeman’s essay is about imagining the context in which his daughters can be personally empowered. I share Freeman’s desire to see my daughter, Misha, empowered to choose her own paths as a girl and as a woman. From the time she was born I sensed the importance of giving her the space to “roam” physically, emotionally, and intellectually often in the face of what some people might think of as conventional thinking. When Misha was a toddler, I often butted heads with my mother-in-law over my parenting style. With five grown children under her belt, my mother-in-law, whom I often describe as the last American housewife, found an engaged and nurturing father a little strange. There were numerous times when my mother-in-law would complain privately to my wife that she wasn’t sure that I knew what I was doing, citing her experiences as a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother as evidence. For example, she never understood why my wife was so comfortable leaving Misha home with me during sick days or when my wife had to travel. Although my late fatherin-law was supportive of his family, he, like my father, saw his importance as being tied to his economic value to his family; thus, it wasn’t unusual that my mother-in-law didn’t quite know what to do with her son-in-law. There were

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rarely “words” between us, but there were subtle moments, such as when my mother-in-law once told Misha she was “acting like a boy.” It was of course an innocuous statement, especially for a two-year-old, but representative of the simple challenges faced by parents trying to eradicate rigid gender roles in the lives of their children. Part of my role as a so-called feminist father is to encourage Misha to do the kinds of things she wants (within reason) regardless of whether the larger society finds such things strange for a little girl. Nowhere has this been more explicit than with Misha’s verbal skills. In this case I am not simply talking about her ability to express herself verbally but also her comfort in saying anything that reflects her desires and feelings at any given time, and admittedly it is something that my wife and I sometimes disagree about. My wife and I were both raised in families in which children just didn’t get involved in “grown folks’ ” conversations. But in the spirit of a feminism that “speaks back,” I’ve thought it important for Misha to indeed speak back, to whatever, with the caveat that she remain respectful. I’d be lying if I said there were times when her ability to “speak back,” hasn’t been absolutely maddening and exasperating, but I also realize how well this will serve her as a young woman. Parke and Brott note the importance of such a strategy, stating, “Girls whose fathers play with them a lot, for example, tend to be more popular with their peers and more assertive in their interpersonal relationships throughout their lives.” The researchers also cite further evidence that “extremely competent and successful women frequently recall their fathers as active and encouraging, playful and exciting.”30 Ironically both my wife and my mother-in-law possess sarcastic wits that suggest that they too understand the importance of women being able to speak back to the world. But even as I pursue the idea of a Black feminist fatherhood, I admittedly am driven by the very issues that drive most responsible fathers, such as the examples of my father and late father-in-law. Thus, there are many moments when I am literally frozen by the fear of not being able to provide economically for my family. Though I make a fairly comfortable living as a writer and academic (most comfortable because of my flexible schedule), my fear of not providing, in collaboration with the “over-achiever” in me, often means I have to struggle mightily with the tensions of being “on my grind” and being a feminist daddy. According to Silverstein, this tension “addresses one of the paradoxes of patriarchal society in that although fathers have had enormous economic power over their children, they have remained emotionally isolated from the intimate relationships of family life.”31 I still struggle with this notion of intimacy with my daughter and wife, though my ability to come to terms with its importance has manifested itself in my hyperawareness of my mortality. That same fear of not being able to provide for my family is often expressed in the fear of dying suddenly and not being around for my family, particularly my daughter. As

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for so many Americans, the tragedy of September 11, 2001, was a reminder of just how fleeting life can be. Some of my most cherished memories of being a father are of trying to protect Misha from any knowledge of the attacks and any knowledge that the world she would grow up in had changed in serious and fundamental ways. In this way, my fears underlie an urgency that I now feel as a father, which often manifests itself in a commitment to creating moments when I can truly be that engaged, nurturing, and yes, feminist father. And yet there’s still that small part of me that can’t help but think about Misha as simply “daddy’s little girl,” something that I’m reminded of when I break down in tears, virtually every time I hear Johnny Harman’s vocal rendition of Bill Evans’s “Waltz for Debby”: “In her own sweet world/populated by dolls and clowns and a prince and a big purple bear/lives my favorite girl, unaware of worried frowns that we weary grown-ups all wear.” Ironically, Misha came to a sense of feminism on her own, courtesy of a Disney Channel production, of all things. Cheetah Girls was based on a series of “tween” novels written by journalist Deborah Gregory that focus on five teenage girls of color who live in New York City. The film featured Raven (Symone) and singing group 3LW members Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams. “Girl Power” and “Cinderella” were two of the songs featured on the film’s soundtrack. The former celebrated the potential of little brown girls (“throw your hands up/if you know that you’re a star”), but it was the explicitly feminist “Cinderella” that captivated Misha. Taking aim at Cinderella, one of the defining myths of childhood femininity, the Cheetah Girls defiantly state that they don’t want to be like Cinderella, coyly singing, “I can slay my own dragons . . . [M]y knight in shining armor is me,” and I thought it was a wonderful sentiment to pass on to little girls in a world that encourages them from the time of their birth to seek out a male protector and provider, whether Prince Charming or the baby daddy around the way. As I rummaged through Misha’s CD collection one day trying to find her Cheetah Girls CD, she asked why I was looking for it, and before I could answer, she said, “I know you want to listen to it, Daddy, because it’s cool.” I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Yes, baby girl, brown girl feminism is cool.” In her essay “Fathering Is a Feminist Issue,” Silverstein makes explicit connections between fatherhood and feminism, suggesting that “redefining fathering to reflect a primary emphasis on nurturing and caretaking, as well as providing, is the next necessary phase in the continuing feminist transformation of patriarchal culture for the benefit of women as well as men.”32 Silverstein’s assertion became most clear to me when my role as a nurturing father—a feminist father—ran into conflict with my career as a music journalist. For some time I had been a strong supporter of R&B vocalist R. Kelly, arguing in my book Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic that the artist often functioned in the role of a social critic who “provides meaningful critiques of contemporary Black life.”33 But I had to reevaluate my relationship

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to Kelly and his music when he was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography in June 2002.34 Six months later an additional 12 counts were added. A month after the last set of indictments, Kelly released his sixth CD, The Chocolate Factory. Thinking about reviewing the CD for one of the publications I wrote for, I couldn’t help but think that such a review would make me a criminal or rather a “critical” accomplice. The indictments against Kelly stem from a series of widely distributed videotapes in which he is purported to have sex with girls as young as 13. Throughout his career, R. Kelly has been haunted by rumors of his rapturous relations with underage girls. His brief marriage to the late Aaliyah in 1994 (she was 15 at the time) was the most visible proof of the truth of those rumors. In late 2000, allegations against Kelly became public as two different women said that the adult Kelly had sex with them when they were minors. Both women were students at Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park, which Kelly also attended as a teen. Kelly settled a suit with another accuser in 1998.35 By the time the videotape emerged in February 2002—on the eve of Kelly’s performance at the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake City Olympics—a clear pattern had emerged: R. Kelly was likely a pedophile and a child pornographer. In response to the indictments, folk went into celebrity surveillance mode, as Kelly’s music, movements, and mediated messages were subject to intense scrutiny. Many urban radio outlets were at the center of the frenetic coverage as program directors (PDs) were faced with decisions over whether to continue to play Kelly’s music. When stories about Kelly’s problems surfaced in 2000, Todd Cavanah, the PD at Chicago’s WBBM-FM, admitted, “We play hit songs from hit artists that our audience like, and R. Kelly is one of them.”36 Cavanah’s tone was very different when Kelly was indicted two years later, and Cavanah decided to pull Kelly’s music from his station’s playlist: “Now that it’s a real case, with a grand jury indictment, it’s a serious issue. . . . We have community standards to live up to, and this is the right thing to do.” In contrast, Marv Dyson, the general manager at WGCI-FM, also in Chicago, offered, “He’s innocent until proven guilty. . . . At this moment our plan is to continue playing his music.”37 When bootlegged videos of R. Kelly Exposed began to appear on the streets of major cities and various links to the “R. Kelly sex video” began to circulate throughout the Internet, it was clear that folks were more interested in the R. Kelly angle than the well-being of the young girl(s) in the video. Seemingly lost in the exchange of dollars and Internet links was the fact that those folks who sold and bought R. Kelly Exposed or who forwarded and opened Internet links, was the fact that they too were trafficking in child pornography. Such oversights are likely to occur within a culture that valued Kelly’s celebrity over the lives of the young Black girls who accused him of having sexual contact with them. The issue of race was easily glossed over in much of the coverage of Kelly’s sexcapades. Mary Mitchell was one of the few commentators who

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addressed the significance of the racial identity of the girls, writing, “As long as [Kelly] is being accused of having sex with underage Black girls, the allegations will draw a collective yawn.” In contrast, she writes, “What would have happened had Kelly gone to an affluent area like Naperville or Winnetka to recruit choir girls . . . [H]ad Kelly been accused of touching a golden hair on just one girl’s head, he would have been put under the jail.”38 And this was part of the irony that I considered as I began to write about R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory. What if Kelly had been Justin Timberlake or Eminem? Would the conversation fall back so easily into one where a White man mistreated and exploited (raped?) a young Black girl because of his racist views of Black women? And of course it did when Benzino (Ray Scott), a marginal hip-hop artist and part owner of the now defunct magazine The Source tried to incite Black audiences to speak out against Eminem (Marshall Mathers) when a tape that the White rapper made when he was a teenager was unearthed. On the tape he “dissed” Black girls by referring to them as “dumb.”39 Pearl Cleage addressed such a reality in Mad at Miles as she wondered “what if Kenny [G] was revealed to be kicking black men’s asses all over the country . . . what if Kenny [G] wrote a book saying that sometimes he had to slap Black men around a little just to make them cool out and leave him the fuck alone.”40 For Cleage, the idea that Black folks would close ranks around folks who harmed other Black folks is unconscionable, be those folks Black or White. Not surprisingly, R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory sold over 550,000 copies in its first week, making it the number one recording on the Soundscan chart for the week. As a longtime fan of Kelly’s music I was one of those who purchased the recording. Three of the songs on Chocolate Factory were originally slated for Loveland. The latter recording was scrapped because of bootlegging. I was forwarded a bootlegged copy of Loveland in early 2002 and listened to it quite regularly as it was the most mature and sophisticated music of Kelly’s career. A favorite of mine was the original version of the song “Step in the Name of Love,” a tribute to the stepper-set culture of Kelly’s native Chicago. As innocuous as Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” or the “Electric Slide,” the song quickly became a favorite of Misha, and very often the two of us could be heard chanting “Step, step, side to side, round and round, dip it now, separate, bring it back, let me see you do the loveslide” while bumping down the highway in the car. But one day when Misha asked to hear the song again, it finally struck me that if she was 10 years older I wouldn’t even want her in the same room with R. Kelly. Suddenly it became clear to me that a figure like Kelly posed a threat not only to my daughter but to a host of other daughters. In the aftermath of the disturbing commercial success of Kelly’s Chocolate Factory (in which I’m admittedly implicated), there were even more disturbing moments such as when Kelly stood in front of the audience at the BET Awards in June 2003 to acknowledge the importance of “Black folk standing up for each other,” as if

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trying to protect young Black girls from pedophiles and other sexual predators is not about standing up for Black folk. No doubt R. Kelly’s incredible level of productivity in the aftermath of his indictments has been motivated by escalating legal expenses and calculated payoffs to the families of women who could be called to testify against him in a court of law. There’s something terribly insidious about listening to R. Kelly floss about being the “Pied Piper of R&B.” For whatever reasons, audiences seem to gravitate toward the man’s worst (and least artistic) impulses. Tracks such as “The Snake” and “Thoia Thoinga” (from his greatest hits package The R in R&B), which folk treated as if it were the new jump-off, represent little of the genius that Kelly is capable of, genius that was powerfully evident on the bootlegged Loveland. But paying close attention to the fable that Kelly attaches himself to, folks seem to forget that the piper took off with the town’s kids when they didn’t pay up for his getting rid of the rats. And let’s be straight: R. Kelly is making off with our kids, but not necessarily as the 30-something man-child eyeballing your 14-year-old in the plaid skirt, but rather as the songwriter and producer of the little shorties that your kids swear are the second coming. What have made R. Kelly peerless over the last 12 years are his abilities as a recording artist, songwriter, arranger, and producer. Ten years ago it was the late Aaliyah and Changing Faces, most recently it’s been the Isley Brothers and Ginuwine, but today Kelly is reproducing himself right at the center of Black kiddie pop, working with acts such as the now defunct B2K, Marques Houston, Cassidy, Nick Cannon, JS (the Johnson Sisters) and Nivea. Kelly got into the mix with B2K on the group’s second disc, Pandemonium, producing the track “Bump, Bump, Bump.” He also produced the song “Girlfriend,” one of the additional tracks on the deluxe upgrade of Pandemonium that was released in March of 2002. Kelly wisely chose not to appear in many of these videos, including that for Nivea’s “Laundromat,” though he does in fact sing opposite her on the song. A man accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with minors obviously can’t show up in a music video cooing in the ear of a teenager. Kelly’s stand-in for the “Laundromat” video was Nick Cannon, of the films Drumline and Love Don’t Cost a Thing and long-time veteran of the Nickelodeon channel. Like Britney Spears before him and Hillary Duff currently, Cannon is trying to translate kiddie fame into a sustainable career. As a label-mate (both Cannon and Kelly record for Jive), Kelly also cast Cannon as the DJ in the video for his song “Ignition (remix)” Perhaps feeling his oats and no doubt feeling all the love pouring from the folk up in the balcony (a metaphor for those folks who don’t care who you molested, but sill want to get down), Kellyand is very present in Cannon’s video “Feeling Freaky,” which also featured B2K. I was in the living room one evening watching the Nickelodeon channel with Misha, when Nick Cannon’s image came on the screen. As my daughter yelped, “Look, Daddy, it’s Nick Cannon!” I thought about the fact that if she

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were ten or eleven years old, I probably would have had to take her to the Scream III tour that Cannon, B2K, and Marques Houston were headlining during the summer of 2003. But there is indeed something to consider when the music performed at a major kiddie pop tour features music written and produced by a man accused of having sexual relations with underage women. The Pied Piper indeed. Four-year-old Misha Gabrielle was with my wife and me the day after Thanksgiving in 2002 as we sat in a local restaurant. It was our first time “out” since we heard that we would not be adopting a second child. Symbolically, the day out was an acknowledgment on the part of my wife and me that we were finally moving on from a very painful and disappointing situation. It was while sitting there, as we thought about using the money set aside for the adoption to plan a trip to Disney World, that we got the call on my cell phone from our lawyer letting us know that the birth mother had again changed her mind and decided to go ahead with the adoption. Camille Monet has been with us since December 2002 (a day before my birthday). These days my notions about my masculinity are firmly tied to how good a parent I am to my two daughters. Despite my hang-ups initially about having a new baby in the house, fatherhood has been a breeze the second time around, and I’m more confident than ever in my skills as a father and conurturer. It is me who now asks my wife, “When are we going to adopt the next one?” I’m in a house full of women, and I’m thinking it’s time to bring a little boy into the mix, if only so that there’ll be another Black boy in the world who will grow up to become an engaged, nurturing, feminist father.

Notes 1. Goodavage, T., 1997, “Are You My Father?” in Father Songs: Testimonies by African-American Sons and Daughters, ed. G. Wade-Gayles (Boston: Beacon), 23. 2. Dowd, N. E., 2000, Redefining Fatherhood (New York: New York University Press), 73. 3. Quoted in “They Call Them Mr. Mom: A Growing Number of Black Fathers Raise Daughters and Sons by Themselves.” Ebony (June 1991), 52. 4. Coltrane, S., 1988, “Father-Child Relationships and the Status of Women: A Cross-Cultural Study,” American Journal of Sociology 93(5): 1089. 5. Coltrane, S., and M. Ishii-Kuntz, 1992, “Men’s Housework: A Life Course Perspective,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 54(1): 54. 6. See the American Sleep Apnea Association website http://www.sleepapnea. org. Retrieved January 22, 2009. 7. Parke, R. D., and A. Brott, 1999, Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be, New York: Houghton Mifflin), 77. 8. Ibid., 78. 9. Quoted in Pruett, K., 1987. The Nurturing Father, 59. New York: Warner.

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10. Balbus, I., 1998, Emotional Rescue: The Theory and Practice of a Feminist Father (New York: Routledge), 104. 11. Parke and Brott 1999, 101. 12. Vecsey, G., 2002, “More Bench for Darren This Time,” New York Times (October 26), D1. 13. Stanton, T., 2004, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America, 141. New York: Morrow. 14. Bodley, H. 2002. “Baker Is the Man among Giants,” USA Today (October 29), 4C. 15. Goodavage 1997, 22. 16. Barras, J. R., 2000, Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women (New York: Ballantine), 39. 17. Dowd 2000, 181. 18. Pruett 1987, 281. 19. Silverstein, L. B., 1996. “Fathering Is a Feminist Issue,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 20: 31. 20. Quoted in Barras 2000, 137. 21. Morgan, J., 1999, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a HipHop Feminist (New York: Simon and Schuster), 126. 22. Barras 2000, 1. 23. Interview with the author, May 10, 2004. 24. Interview with the author, May 16, 2004. 25. Parke and Brott 1999, 10. 26. Interview with the author, May 14, 2004. 27. Interview with author, May 21, 2004. 28. Coltrane 1988, 1089. 29. Aaron Freeman, “Notes of a Feminist Dad” at http://www.aaronfreeman. com/writer/femdad.html. Retrieved January 22, 2009. 30. Parke and Brott 1999, 10. 31. Silverstein 1996, 30. 32. Ibid., 4. 33. Neal, M. A., 2002. Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (New York: Routledge, 2002), 33. 34. Pallasch, A. M., and J. DeRogatis, 2002, “R&B Superstar Hit with 21 Counts of Child Porn,” Chicago Sun Times (June 6), 6. 35. DeRogatis, J., and A. Pallasch, 2002, “City Police Investigate R&B Singer R. Kelly in Sex Tape,” Chicago Sun Times (February 8), 1. 36. DeRogatis, J., and A. Pallasch, 2002, “R. Kelly Report Sparks Anger,” Chicago Sun Times (December 22), 3. 37. Houlihan, M., 2002, “Kelly Tunes Get Boot at One Station,” Chicago Sun Times (June 6), 8. 38. Mitchell, M., 2002, “Latest Allegation Unlikely to Get Kelly in Big Trouble,” Chicago Sun Times (February 14), 14. 39. Gaboa, G., 2003, “A War of Words,” Newsday (December 21), 22. 40. Cleage, P., 1990, Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman’s Guide to Truth (Southfield, MI: Cleage Group), 20.

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Chapter 3

Tubes Tied, Child-Free by Choice Aaronette M. White

The term child-free has been reclaimed by people like me who contend that not having children can be an active, positive, and fulfilling choice. I am a child-free and voluntarily sterilized African American woman.1 I had my tubes tied, despite the horrific history of sterilization in this country and persistent misconceptions about child-free women. Although I believe, as an adult, that I share some responsibility for looking after and caring for children (it does take a village to raise a child), I have never wanted to be a child’s mother. I have never wanted to have children—meaning, to bear my own, adopt, or foster another human being as a parent. However, people have always told me that I would change my mind. I have always felt that as an African American woman, I had enough to deal with alone. Having a child would only complicate the injustices I was already experiencing and fighting against in my everyday life, my academic profession, and the political activism in which I am engaged, nationally and internationally. The racial, gender, and class inequalities embedded in our society’s institutions offer very limited definitions of family, work, healthcare, social security, and public education; as a result, I gradually disengaged myself from other people’s expectations for my personal life. Having a tubal ligation, to me, meant no children—not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Writing about the decision not to have a child makes me visible to women who may not even see childbearing as something you decide to do or not. Additionally, I want to challenge certain books about child-free women that say only White women make this choice. I write to demonstrate what it means to have clarity and a heart strong enough to live with my decision, despite negative stereotypes and judgments about it. Of course I respect mothers’ experiences and honor mothers in general. However, women can have awe-inspiring and

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satisfying lives in addition to, and even instead of, bearing and raising children. We can address feelings of emptiness and/or establish our authenticity as women without the experience of pregnancy or giving birth, and the experiences of child-free women should be equally respected and honored. My initial reasons for not wanting children have multiplied as a result of the ongoing pressures I have had to contend with regarding my decision. Women who choose to remain child-free are expected to justify themselves in ways that women who have children are not, because women are expected to have children. Motherhood is still considered to be women’s primary role; and most societies, regardless of economic, political, or cultural systems, value childbearing over childlessness.2 Voluntarily child-free women challenge (and threaten) cultural expectations because in addition to the fact that they do not have children, they do not want them. Voluntarily childless women have been criticized as selfish, immature, and irresponsible. In contrast, the involuntarily childless woman is considered worthy of sympathy, resources, and support. It is assumed that “no children” means “can’t have children” or “hasn’t found the right mate.”3 To my mind, we need to understand both childlessness and sterilization in new ways that respect the choice and life of a woman who refuses to have a child and who acts with self-determination to protect that choice. That calls for the development of alternative vocabularies for the issues involved. Scholarly research on women who are intentionally childless consistently demonstrates that child-free women do not constitute a homogeneous group.4 Explanations and motivations for remaining child-free are multiple, complex, and sometimes as contradictory as the reasons women give for having children. Most important, empirical research has found that both women with and women without children are oppressed, albeit in different ways, by male-dominant societies. One group is not automatically more marginalized than the other, and I reject the view that the interests of mothers and child-free women are at odds. Despite our different choices, we as women have to negotiate the meaning of our experiences in ways that focus on the connections between us. We all need to work together for common solutions. Finally, I do not mean to devalue women who choose to be mothers part-time, full-time, or every time they become pregnant. I am not rejecting mothers. I am critiquing the notion that all women must become mothers. I am rejecting motherhood as a role for me. I am breaking the taboo against Black women, in particular, speaking critically about the lives of long-suffering, selfsacrificing Black mothers. I regret the reluctance of women of color to speak about voluntary sterilization as a liberating option, despite (or because of) this country’s racist history of sterilization abuse. At this writing, my youngest sister is undergoing fertility treatments, and I applaud her for exercising her right to make that choice

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My perspective on reproductive rights is simply one of many, and to discuss all feminists’ views is beyond the purpose of this very personal and political chapter. I am simply sharing my story of exercising reproductive freedom after experiencing racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism as an African American woman. Also, I lay out my objections to self-serving, masculinist notions of Black women’s identities. Our identity is not limited to provider of sex, eroticized or romanticized fertility figure, or nurturer and power behind the throne. Rather than getting tired of feeling different, I want child-free women to be able to feel comfortable in their nonconformity, because remaining unapologetically child-free takes guts.5

True Confessions I have never felt driven to be married or to have children, although I’ve been married twice. I have had four abortions—all legal, thanks to the feminist movement. Two occurred during my marriages (stressful periods during which I was most pressured to have children by people outside my family) and two others while I was with men whom I considered marrying. I loved all of these men. However, that love did not translate into wanting to have a child with or for any of them. The last man, who had a role in my fourth and final pregnancy, was wealthy, African American, and the true love of my life. Before I became pregnant I had taken the unusually bold, feminist initiative of proposing to him. We had been dating for two years, and I felt it was time to make a decision about the commitment level of our relationship. He seemed to be avoiding the matter. When I asked him to marry me, he refused. He loved me but did not want to be married at that point in his life (he was 29 years my senior). Having a baby with him would have ensured my future wealth as well as that of the child, but I did not want children—nor did he. When I got pregnant, he agreed that the ultimate decision was mine. After all, it was my body that was pregnant. He contributed the sperm, but I contributed the egg, the womb, and the body; that’s three to one, not counting the lifetime commitment having a child entails that primarily falls on the mother.

The Right to Choose: Contraceptives, Abortion, and Sterilization Abortion and sterilization, no matter how unpalatable they may seem, offer women opportunities to take control of their fertility if available by choice rather than coercion. These two options were critical to the reproductive freedom I currently experience.

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Every birth control method I have ever used has failed at least once since I began having sex at age 20. I cannot explain it; some women, like me, just seem to be “fertile turtles.” After a lot of wear and tear on my body and peace of mind, I grew weary of chemical contraceptives and the diaphragm. I had never been on the pill because I hated the idea of altering my hormone levels. When I first became sexually active, I liked the convenience of birth control suppositories, but the spermicides in them resulted in vaginal irritation and urinary tract infections. Birth-control devices that required surgery for insertion and removal, like the IUD or Norplant, seemed too risky health-wise. After my last abortion, I vowed that I would never become pregnant again. Although grateful that I could choose abortion as an option, I was tired of getting pregnant and of the monthly dread and panic when my period was late. I had developed a deep-rooted fear of becoming pregnant and was slowly developing distaste for sex with men. I entertained several unrealistic fantasies: becoming lesbian, developing an asexual identity, and becoming permanently celibate. I actually did stay celibate for a number of years and claimed to be asexual during a time when the fear of becoming pregnant led me to question my sexuality. I was stunned to discover much later that other child-free women have entertained extreme fantasies and dreams, such as being in a car accident or having a rare disease, waking up in the hospital hearing a doctor say, “You’ll live but you’ll never have children,” and shouting, “Bless you!”6 As I made the arrangements for my 4th abortion, I remember feeling pleased that gays and lesbians were asserting their rights as parents. I also admired single women who were asserting their rights to have babies and adopt children solo. Grandmothers have raised their children’s children for centuries, so I had no problem with women who were old enough to be grandmothers enjoying their right to give birth for the first time (after all, men old enough to be grandfathers have historically asserted their right to have children). However, despite maternal revivalism, campaigns to “save the family,” and the concurrent rise of infertility treatments and new reproductive technologies, I wanted no part of the postmodern baby boom. In my gut, I knew that after this fourth abortion and the failure of the diaphragm to protect me from my own fertility, I was going to seek permanent pregnancy prevention. Being pregnant made me so depressed that I became suicidal and experienced a chronic sense of panic. I sought comfort from a therapist, who assured me that I would survive the upcoming abortion and could look forward to becoming sterilized shortly thereafter. To pass the time and to quell my anxiety, I researched various sterilization techniques for women on the Internet. I talked to two of my older sisters about their experiences of voluntary sterilization after giving birth to children. I also spoke to my mother about my plans. She told me she had wanted my father to have a vasectomy, and that he had refused. Later she opted for a hysterectomy.

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My sisters affirmed that sterilization was one of the best decisions they had made, and they and my mother encouraged me to follow my heart. I did not ask my father his opinion, and although he didn’t volunteer one, he also did not discourage me. I was not postponing a decision about childbearing; I had made one that I was finally acting on. To my dismay, my doctor informed me that because I had never had children and had also recently had an abortion, I had to wait three months before an elective tubal ligation could be carried out. That was her policy. I was livid! How could a doctor so easily deny my right to choose something I had wanted for years? She explained that studies have shown that women who were sterilized around the same time they ended a pregnancy were much more likely to regret the operation.7 However, she neglected to add that women who regret being sterilized are overwhelmingly women who already have children—not women who are determined never and under any circumstances to have children.8 My ability to answer all the “what if” questions (e.g., What if you get married, fall in love, change your mind?) did not make a difference. The role of gatekeeper is an established and intrinsic part of any doctor’s responsibility—even a prochoice doctor—though it may be inappropriate under some circumstances.9 I was inconsolable. Finally, after an agonizing three months, I was sterilized.

Voluntary and Involuntary Sterilization: There’s a Distinction It is no coincidence that modern sterilization procedures developed during a period in history when the White upper and middle classes feared “race suicide.” White elites sought to decrease the population of groups they deemed as “unfit” to procreate, through compulsory sterilization programs that ensured “survival of the fittest” according to racist and class-based definitions. Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term eugenics, a pseudoscience according to which heredity was law: those with good genes should be encouraged to procreate and flourish, while those with “defective” genes should be discouraged from procreating in order to eliminate degenerative offspring. This elitist policy targeted poor White women, mentally and physically disabled women, and women of disenfranchised groups (e.g., African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto-Ricans, and other women of color).10 The United States shaped and transformed eugenics into a movement that spread internationally—particularly in Nazi Germany. As a result, coercive sterilization practices (e.g., hysterectomies and tubal ligations) were carried out against the will of many women, often without their knowledge and while they were undergoing other medical procedures.11 Among women of color, the word sterilization understandably evokes images of abuse. However, reproductive freedom has always been about a

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woman’s right to choose what she views as best for her own body. If a woman can choose sterilization, it may be a liberating rather than an oppressive choice. A similar debate occurred among African Americans when the pill grew in popularity among Black women, during the height of the civil rights and women’s movements. Black women were admonished by Black men to “throw away the pill and hop to the mattresses and breed revolutionaries and mess up the [White] man’s genocidal program.”12 At one of those “revolutionary” meetings, a woman shouted at a brother in piss-off-mad-as-hell-Black “womyn’s” ebonics, “when’s the last time you fed one of them brats you been breeding all over the city, you jive-ass so-and-so?”13 As the late Toni Cade Bambara suggested, neither the pill nor voluntary sterilization intrinsically liberates women. They can only help by giving Black women “control over some of the major events in their lives and time to fight for liberation in other areas with their minds, not necessarily their wombs.”14 In a study of child-free women who actively chose to be sterilized, overwhelming relief was the most common experience after sterilization.15 Although these women were White and British, I could relate intimately to their stories. Like many of them, I knew at an early age that I did not want children. Like them, after difficulties with various contraceptives, I decided to have a tubal ligation. It was no spur-of-the-moment decision. In addition to two divorces and four abortions, I had worked as a babysitter during my teens, as a child therapist during young adulthood, and as the part-time caretaker of nieces, nephews, and godchildren. I liked other women’s children well enough, but I knew I wanted none of my own. I looked forward to menopause; it just wasn’t coming fast enough for me. This very personal decision was shaped by race, gender, and class factors that interact in my social and professional life: great health insurance that covered my last abortion and tubal ligation, parents who supported my decision, and exposure to feminist ideas about constructing an identity as a child-free woman. In that sense, it was undoubtedly political, too. Being employed fulltime at a university certainly increased the chances that I would have viable options. But not all health insurance policies cover both abortion and sterilization procedures. Clearly, all women need health insurance that supports their reproductive health decisions. It helped that my parents respected my decision and weren’t particularly upset by it. Three of my four sisters have provided them with five grandchildren, and my entire family is prochoice. Being socialized in a prochoice family was strengthened by feminist perspectives I acquired in graduate school. I watched my two older sisters parenting without much help from their exhusbands, the fathers of their children. Although I applaud and admire my sisters, I did not want to experience the emotional and financial strain they experienced. Higher education exposed me to a wonderful feminist network of friends who sup-

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ported my choices. My career path entails endless professional qualification processes, publication pressure, and time-consuming research—all of which I actually enjoy. Some women are happiest giving birth to ideas, art, women’s organizations, new courses, and social change-oriented research projects, rather than children. My Tubal Ligation The tubal ligation was a present to myself, to start the new millennium. It was done on January 3, 2001, when I was 39 years old. A tubal ligation is a medical procedure that closes off the fallopian tubes, the site where an egg is fertilized by a sperm. When the tubes are closed, sperm cannot reach the egg, and pregnancy cannot occur. No glands or organs are removed or changed, and all female hormones will still be produced. Therefore, tubal ligations do not cause symptoms of menopause or make menopause happen earlier. The ovaries continue to release eggs after the procedure, and the eggs dissolve and are absorbed by the body each month, like other dead and unused cells. Menstrual cycles usually follow their regular pattern, and the procedure does not affect sexual pleasure; however, some women have reported that their sex lives have dramatically improved afterward because they no longer fear pregnancy.16 Sterilization is more than 99% effective in the first year. In following years, there is a limited possibility that the tubes may reconnect themselves, given the body’s ability to regenerate. Up to one out of 100 women becomes pregnant each year after sterilization. About 1 out of 3 of these pregnancies is ectopic (a fertilized egg develops in a fallopian tube, not the uterus) and may require emergency surgery. A tubal ligation provides no protection against sexually transmitted infections.17 Today, under some circumstances—if a person is single or childless, as I was—sterilization may be difficult to arrange. Policies and practices vary with individual providers and hospitals and from state to state. To avoid needless stress and getting the runaround, women can find the names of prochoice doctors in their state on the website of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.18 Although married women used to need a husband’s consent before sterilization, that is no longer the case. There are several techniques for performing tubal ligation (hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, minilaparotomy, and laparotomy).19 I had a laparoscopy under general anesthesia. After the anesthesia took effect, my abdomen was inflated with an injection of harmless gas (carbon dioxide), which allowed my organs to be seen clearly. Then, the surgeon made a small incision near my navel and inserted a laparoscope (a rod-like instrument with a light and a viewing lens) to locate my tubes. In my case only one incision and one instrument were used (sometimes two incisions and two different instruments are used for opening

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and closing the tubes). It took about 20 to 30 minutes for the entire procedure. After the anesthesia wore off, I went home the same day. As a result of opting for general anesthesia, the procedure was entirely painless. The next day, I woke up to the fresh smell of flowers from my lover with a card saying, “These flowers are where I wish I could be.” Next to his bouquet stood a single long-stemmed rose in a vase, from my surgeon and her staff. Beside the rose was a card from my parents saying, “We love you and are proud of you.” I felt no discomfort immediately after the procedure and had to use a magnifying glass to see the tiny incision inside my navel after removing the bandage the next day. However, one week later I developed light cramping due to adhesions (scar tissue), for which I had a hereditary predisposition. Massage therapy helped stretch the adhesions, and the discomfort ended after a two-week period. Similar to my experience with the four abortions, I felt huge relief after the tubal ligation. In addition, I felt less vulnerable and more content, and I developed a renewed and relaxed ability to enjoy heterosexual activity, free from the fear of pregnancy.

Misconceptions about Child-Free Women Child-free women are the subject of many myths and stereotypes, and other people often make hurtful comments to us. Although I got most of these comments from strangers and casual acquaintances, rather than family and close friends, I believe such comments should always be challenged, so as to increase people’s awareness about their patriarchal and heterosexist assumptions. Women Who Don’t Want Children Are Selfish We are also described as cheap, thoughtless, immature, irresponsible, and unwilling to give up our “self-indulgent” lifestyles. I’m not selfish—I see myself as practical. If I don’t want to put hobbies, vacations, career, friends, and myself on hold, it just makes sense not to selfishly bring a child into the mix. I don’t need to “have it all.” What some people label “selfish,” we child-free women call “self-awareness.”20 In my opinion, we are all making different sacrifices in our lives, regardless of whether we have children or not, and one sacrifice is not necessarily better than another. Some people with children rarely consider that without children, I may be better able to help my parents financially if they need help, support philanthropic concerns, or support myself during retirement and avoid being dependent on the government. All are viable reasons for not having children.

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As a single Black woman, I have to plan very carefully for my retirement years. Although I think the government should take care of its elderly, like most independent women I prefer not to be dependent on the government, or anyone else, for that matter. Since I don’t have children whose education I have to finance, I am less likely to find myself deep in debt as I get older. Some child-free people think it selfish for parents to bring children into an unjust world, or into the world when they cannot provide a secure future for them. However, I prefer not to judge people, with or without children. Can we agree to disagree on priorities without calling each other’s priorities selfish? As one child-free woman put it, “I do not want to be a mother just as I do not want to be a doctor or an engineer or a farmer or a poet or an actor. Just as I do not want to climb Mount Everest, collect antiques or raise orchids.”21 The dualistic idea opposing the “unshakeable career-woman” and “the caring, self-sacrificing mother” are stereotypes of women’s identities that are usually much more complicated than meets the eye.22 You Cannot Have a Full Life as a Woman without Experiencing Motherhood The assumption here is that a woman is incomplete or deficient in some way when she has not given birth. Children are assumed necessary to complete a woman’s life. Therefore, women who intentionally say no to motherhood are commonly represented as unfulfilled, and a child-free life is considered not a well-rounded, appealing life. However, contemporary research has demonstrated that there are great variations among both mothers and child-free women. Both mothers and child-free women may feel unfulfilled for a variety of reasons—or not. Some child-free women, especially those who suffer from infertility or other health problems that preclude childbearing, have to grieve the loss of their imagined identities as mothers and learn other ways to feel fulfilled. Other women who are child-free end up that way because they delay making a decision until it is too late to have a child. They, too, can live fulfilled lives and make something of themselves, their sexuality, and their lives outside of motherhood. For women who actively choose to be child-free, fulfillment may be defined in other ways, including more privacy, time to travel, and projects and activities that give meaning to life for various reasons. Why must women look to their children to validate their lives, rather than looking inside, at themselves? Why must someone else—a baby, a romantic partner—need us for us to feel fulfilled? In many ways, remaining child-free has been an obvious outcome of other fulfilling choices I have made. My research, writing, and activism appeal more to me, excite me more, and bring out my passion more than any dream of having children. I spend a lot of time engrossed in my work or civic activities,

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socializing with colleagues, spending time with my ageing parents, falling in love again, and traveling to Africa—all fulfilling activities that have made my life interesting to me. I am always in the middle of some research project and learning some new skill. Motherhood can give a woman a feeling of security in society and a sense of importance and maturity, but other experiences can also provide these feelings.23 Current research on women who choose to remain child-free describes additional routes to fulfillment.24 One common finding across these studies is that child-free women experience a variety of personally fulfilling freedoms. Some develop satisfying interpersonal relationships with other adults, experience exciting travel opportunities, enjoy a wide range of work opportunities, and relish additional opportunities for peace and quiet. Many feel deep satisfaction from having personal time and financial autonomy, or through developing interests outside of work. Child-free women do not necessarily have to be missing something, any more than mothers do. Feminists do not necessarily place motherhood at the center of whom women can be. Rather than assuming emptiness if we have never had children, or an “empty nest” if our children are grown and gone out on their own, we can envisage “a radical openness that allows for other possibilities of growth, expansion, exploration.”25 A wise refusal of motherhood can allow “a deepening, widening and expanding sense of life and self.”26 This womanly choice, an “affirming refusal, invites life; it’s a room, not a womb. Like a womb, it harbors life, but unlike a womb, it leaves room to create the rest of life.”27 Not having children can create space for becoming more of oneself, through possibilities and options not always available to mothers. You Hate Children, Mothers, and Family It is often assumed that dislike of children is the single most important motivating factor for child-free women and couples. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this stereotype, and positive attitudes toward children do not necessarily correspond to wanting to raise children of one’s own.28 Childfree individuals vary in their attitudes toward children, just like people who actually have them. While some do dislike children and prefer to avoid their company, many devote time to children as aunts, uncles, godparents, teachers, volunteers, and other child-care professionals. My love for children and work as a child clinician during my early training as a psychologist made me extremely sensitive to the emotional pain children experience, even with parents who claim they wanted them. My clinical training made me painfully aware of the cruelty of some parents toward their children. Working with these children led me to switch to a more research-oriented

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area of psychology, in order to study how to help oppressed and politically disenfranchised parents learn to resist injustices in proactive ways and perhaps become better parents in so doing.29 Yet, I am still asked by some adults, “What do you have against mothers, and why are you so antifamily?” I have nothing against mothers, and I am not antifamily. I am, however, against pervasive injustices that make being a mother more difficult than necessary. For women, the physical, emotional, and cognitive experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood involve major commitments. Compared to fathers, mothers’ more intensive involvement in parenting may offer more gratification and emotional closeness, but at greater personal cost in terms of responsibility, sacrifice, stress, time commitment, and social scrutiny.30 The economic costs for women in terms of lost wages and career advancement, described in the workforce literature as “the motherhood penalty,” are substantial.31 Moreover, conflicting cultural and religious views of women’s roles with respect to the family and outside employment often result in biases against mothers in the workplace.32 Mothers who work full-time, especially if they are unable to negotiate flexible hours, may come home to a “second shift.”33 Although fathers have increased their involvement in childcare and housework in recent decades, they still provide fewer hours and, generally, less direct care than do mothers.34 Thus, family and childrearing are still experienced differently by men and women and leave women at a higher risk of economic insecurity. Even if control over my own life is an illusion, it’s a comforting one for me, as well as for many child-free women.35 Your Maternal Instincts Will Kick in Eventually Women are supposed to want babies and to be nurturers by nature. Saying that women have a maternal instinct implies that having children and subordinating our own interests to our offspring’s is “natural” and “womanly.” Motherhood, biologically based, is considered a natural and important aspect of a woman’s identity, while fatherhood is not essential for manhood and requires learning. If you are not a mother, you are “other” and therefore marginalized in society.36 However, most people would not think of describing a man without offspring as a “childless man,” a “nonfather” or even a “barren” man.37 This belief system has been, and still is, convenient for men who would like to maintain their dominance. Such cultural definitions of gender create a mindset among both women and men about roles, a woman’s place being in the home and a man’s place in the world outside it. Women have babies not from instinct but because we have been told from day one and in a million little ways that having babies is normal, desirable, and good, from the dolls that are put in our cribs to the flowers we receive in the maternity ward.38

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Related to this assumption is the idea that not wanting a child is unhealthy and that a child-free woman is less feminine, has a cold personality, and has cut herself off from her ability to nurture. I beg to differ. Nurturing behavior is learned. I learned it well as a clinician, professional baby-sitter, and loving aunt who spent summers taking care of my oldest sister’s children. I also “mentor” (a professional word for nurture) undergraduate and graduate students in my classes and research projects and at professional conferences. As a result of not having children of my own, I have more time to nurture other people’s children. However, society has long associated the feminine with the maternal, making it difficult to imagine nonmaternal identities for women as equivalent to, and not substitutes for, maternal identities. Men, too, can become “maternal” or, in gender-neutral terms, “nurturers” when they have to, particularly when they become single parents following the death of the mother, abandonment, or divorce.39 Bearing Children Is the One Real Psychological and Biological Power Women Have over Men The potential to bring forth new life is traditionally women’s source of power. In many cultures, women have little or no status if they forego having children or if they are unable to produce a child.40 Motherhood may make women feel important and mature and assure their place in society, but a variety of other experiences can also provide these feelings.41 Furthermore, motherhood can lead to powerlessness in the absence of supportive work and family policies; even in the 21st century, juggling motherwork with paid employment is difficult, especially for women who are trying to do it alone.42 Some women have experienced lack of fulfillment and less power with motherhood and describe mother work as entailing a loss of free time, energy, and identity.43 Others perceive motherhood as a restricted lifestyle that may require a woman to sacrifice her identity, going from being a woman in her own right to someone else’s wife, mother, and grandmother, such that any choice about what she wants to do, who she is, and what she needs gets lost for 15 to 18 years—and sometimes even longer.44 Women have described their mothering experiences as a burden, involving demands and pressures on their time, unfulfilling activities, fighting with insensitive institutions and their children’s unreliable fathers, who they thought would help them.45 The rejection of motherhood by some women does not mean that it is not a viable or powerful identity for many other women. However, becoming a mother is simply one of many powerful roles and identities women can embrace. Some women experience power by remaining child-free. Regardless of whether a woman is a mother or not, what really matters is reproductive freedom and the power that this kind of freedom allows. Once women are in control of their reproductive cycle, they are less dependent on men, more self-assured, and more active across other areas of their lives.46 This kind of independence and power

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produces a wide range of life choices for women and expands women’s active decision-making capabilities.47 According to a summary of research conducted on voluntarily childless women during the 1970s and 1980s, 79% of respondents gave “freedom” as the key reason for their decision not to have children.48 “Freedom from the worries and responsibilities that motherhood involves and the related freedom to use their emotional energies and waking hours in pursuit of what is meaningful for them, whether those pursuits involve professional work, creative endeavors, civic commitments or leisure activities.”49 Most important, however, is the ability of women to perceive freedom and power beyond individual or personal empowerment. The goal of the feminist movement transcends personal power; feminism is also about collective power and specific political goals that allow women as a whole to experience justice in their lives. Reproductive choices and access to certain reproductive technologies are often determined by a woman’s race, class, education level, and other social factors. Thus, feminists address issues of reproductive choice by targeting sociopolitical conditions that limit choice. Women in many parts of the world, and even in parts of this country, are unable to exercise reproductive freedom and access the technologies that facilitate being child-free; the struggle continues to ensure that this choice is available to all rather than a privileged few. The feminist vision includes individual and collective power for all women, by eliminating the hierarchies among women that systemic injustices have created. Feminists also believe that power is created in multiple ways, and we must be willing to explore and find them. Liberation, not mere personal satisfaction, is the larger goal, and liberation is a collective project.50 You Can Have a Dazzling Career and be a Mother, Too The feminist movement has fought to attain parent-friendly, flexible work practices, allowing mothers, for the most part, to combine paid work with family responsibilities. However, women’s primary responsibilities are still seen to be motherhood and the care of children. Women are expected to accommodate motherhood within workplace circumstances, rather than remain child-free. Consequently, women’s increased participation in the workforce has generated images of the superwoman in the context of “having it all.”51 In practice, having a career and children means that a woman works even longer hours, given multiple duties at work and at home that require and compete for her time, attention, and dedication.52 Under these conditions, something usually has to give. The woman who chooses both career and motherhood struggles to balance the two and often ends up being better at one than the other or is accused of being mediocre at both. Career women are called pushy rather than ambitious, aggressive rather than assertive, and said to be losing

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their competitive edge (and usually a promotion) if they are mothers, relegated to the “mommy track.” If they succeed, they are thought to be lousy wives and mothers. Some live guilt-ridden, rarely feeling like the energetic woman in the advertisements who claims to have it all. I watched my African American mother attempt to have it all. She created a career for herself first in nursing, then in hospital administration, while raising five daughters. She loved her career, and she loved us. She even made sure we had a long-term babysitter for more than 14 years. The babysitter was a stabilizing force in our family, and her work helped our household run smoothly when my mother’s paid work and graduate education required additional time. However, I also remember how exhausted my mother was and wished she could learn how to relax, those many evenings when she came home from work feeling the pressures of having it all. After watching her climb the administrative ladder, earn her master’s degree, monitor our grades, drop us off at piano lessons, attend our ballet recitals, and struggle to keep my father happy, I decided that when I grew up, I did not want to be that tired. Although I am grateful for her sacrifices and the fine upbringing I received, I have made it a point to craft a life where I can be happy with less. I don’t need it all to be happy; some of it will do just fine. Finally, the stereotype implies that all child-free women have exciting careers. Some of us do, and others do not. Many mothers never have the economic luxury of choosing not to work outside the home. However, I admit I do have what I consider to be an exciting career. Nevertheless, I choose to spend time on other things besides work. I resent it when my child-free status is exploited by coworkers who place unreasonable expectations on me, assuming that because I don’t have children I am available 24 hours a day. Caring for children is seen as a legitimate excuse for missing work and skipping out of meetings early, but rarely are commitments to romantic partners, friends, and elderly parents considered equally good reasons for needing flex time.53 Most of my coworkers assume that because I am child-free, I am also responsibilityfree—meaning footloose, carefree, and fancy-free. Child-free women may be caregivers in other areas of our lives that are rendered invisible simply because we are not mothers. I’ve used part of my sabbatical and an unpaid leave of absence to help my mother care for my father, who has Parkinson’s disease. Most women struggle to balance their work life and home life, regardless of parental status. You’re Letting Precious Resources Go to Waste: We Need Women Like You to Have Babies These comments were made to me when I was married. I consider them “eugenics-oriented” arguments, thinly disguised as compliments.

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As a feminist, I challenge powerful beliefs about who should become a mother and under what circumstances. African American legal scholar Dorothy Smith documents how expanding reproductive technologies and legal paths to parenthood are being created primarily for White, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle-class, and wealthy women.54 For women without such privileges (e.g., many women of color), neither popular consensus nor social policies support their desires to become mothers or to stay at home with their children,55 while “suitable” White, middle-class women have struggled to gain the right to avoid, terminate, or limit pregnancies. However, the right to motherhood of Native American, Black, and Latina women has been compromised through disproportionate and nonconsensual sterilization.56 Women who are single, divorced, lesbian, poor, or mentally or physically challenged are also perceived as less suitable/unsuitable for motherhood. I am dismayed by the notion that some women are more suitable to be mothers than others on the basis of superficial characteristics alone. I support a woman’s right to choose to have children or remain child-free, regardless of race, sexuality, marital status, religion, or economic status. The choice I made should be available to all of us, and the following Black feminist statement regarding reproductive freedom has become my personal anthem: Choice is the essence of freedom. It’s what we African Americans have struggled for all these years. . . . The right to choose where we would sit on a bus. The right to vote. The right for each of us to select our own paths, to dream and reach for our dreams. The right to choose how we would and would not live our lives. This freedom—to choose and to exercise our choices—is what we’ve fought and died for. Brought here in chains, worked like mules, bred like beasts, whipped one day, sold the next—244 years we were held in bondage. . . . Somebody said that we were less than human and not fit for freedom. Somebody said we were like children and could not be trusted to think for ourselves. Somebody owned our flesh and decided if and when and with whom and how our bodies were to be used. Somebody said that Black women could be raped, held in concubinage, forced to bear children year in and year out, but often not raise them. . . . Oh, yes, we have known how painful it is to be without choice in this land . . . Reproductive freedom gives each of us the right to make our own choices and guarantees us a safe, legal, affordable support system.57 What a Tragedy; You Will Regret It Later! Not having children has traditionally been framed in terms of the suffering associated with involuntary childlessness or infertility. I disagree with the

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assumption that infertility automatically means tragedy. But even my choice to remain child-free is often viewed as tragedy because people assume that at some point I will regret my decision. So far, I have not. However, there’s no magic formula that prevents regret! Some regrets are a part of life and of individual personal development. People must be allowed to take responsibility for their decisions. I resent it when people suggest I do not know my own mind and that I am simply a future mother who will change my mind when I “become mature and/or find the right man.”58 Not only did I meet him, I became pregnant by him, and nonetheless I chose to end that pregnancy. Some child-free women may have second thoughts or momentary twinges about not becoming a mother. That is predictable, according to an in-depth study of voluntarily child-free women.59 Societal messages and pressures to procreate are so pervasive that avoiding moments of wavering becomes difficult, particularly when a woman’s life becomes lonely, boring, or stagnant. Also, life transitions that involve loss—an unexpected death of a husband or sibling or the illness or death of a parent—may stimulate concern about one’s future without children. The romance of motherhood has appeared as a distracting fantasy for many child-free women because entertaining such images is understandable in a culture where a child is presented as a magic bullet, as a guarantor of joy and fulfillment, and where other options and positive identities for women may be scarce . . . for women especially, a child may represent an expectation of permanent security, a relationship that protects one from isolation and loneliness.60 Another assumption is that I am somehow limiting my womanhood by refusing to engage in “the mothering experience.” On the contrary, I see myself as pushing the boundaries and expanding my womanhood. Though I have chosen not to have children of my own, I enjoy the company of certain children and see how they can be a source of unique pleasure. The mild longing I experience when I am around such children is not regret but the realization that I am not willing to deal with this particular kind of responsibility and hard work on a permanent basis. I am mature enough to realize my limits. I happily spend time with children when I am able to and drop them back off to their parents when I must take care of other responsibilities. The appeal of a child-free life can lead to an early and irrevocable decision, as in my case. However, some women remain childless because of ambivalence about motherhood; some say they never found the right man with whom to have a child, while others postpone motherhood to the point when time makes the choice for them.

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In global terms, children are seen as a valuable resource (“gifts from God”), and their absence from the lives of some women is viewed as a personal tragedy. However, “gifts from God” come in many forms. The only tragedy I experienced after being sterilized was the refusal of certain friends and a few exlovers to accept my choice, under the illusion that I would eventually come around. My tubal ligation also sets a tone for any future relationships with men, defining how serious my personal boundaries are; if having a child with me is of paramount importance to a man, he needs to find someone else. That to me is not a tragedy but a self-determined and livable reality. You Must Have Had a Bad Childhood Research studies have demonstrated there is nothing unique in the background of childless individuals, on the whole, to differentiate them from parents.61 However, interpreting and evaluating certain childhood experiences may prompt some women to remain child-free. For instance, a minority explain their aversion to having children as a result, at least in part, of family experiences such as their parents’ divorce, having a handicapped or ill sibling or parent, having elderly parents who struggled to support them, having parents who were selfish, and even having parents who were overly self-sacrificing.62 Most people have had less than perfect childhood experiences. Some avoid parenthood because of a fear of not living up to the standards set by their own parents. Others fear they will repeat their parents’ negative parenting techniques. Even these fears do not necessarily stem from severe abuse or neglect; they may be rooted in the knowledge that their mothers (or both parents) weren’t happy, struggled to juggle career and family, or experienced financial hardships too negative and burdensome to repeat.63 Some people have children, and some do not for all sorts of reasons, as opposed to any single reason or experience.64 Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Lonely and Old? Given societal overemphasis on youth and the lack of public support for ageing, this fear is a real one. I am well aware that children, mainly female children, often do play a role in providing care to their elderly parents. However, having children because you hope they will take care of you in your old age borders on selfishness, as I see it. There is no guarantee that a child will be willing or able to care for a parent when both are older. Women are not always willingly cared for (hence the occurrence of elder abuse) or willing to be cared for by their children. Even for those with children, things are not always rosy. Many older people complain about adult children who do not call regularly, visit frequently enough, or stay long. Loneliness persists if we do not have fulfilling lives, with or without children. There are many ways to deal with it. All women, not only those

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without children, need social environments that offer support as they age. What’s more, individuals without children are not necessarily isolated and are more likely to develop important links with other family members and friends. Older women’s networks such as the Gray Panthers and Old Lesbian Women Organizing for Change are on the rise for this very reason. I plan to become an active member of these groups, in order to continue the fight against ageism and its cozy relationship with sexism.65 My mobile status (single, child-free, and financially independent) has allowed me to take advantage of a new position. I want to explore the aspects of life that venture far beyond a woman’s womb. I have accepted the responsibility of living on the radical edge without burdening a child with that choice. To each her own. Let’s live and let live.

Notes 1. Some feminists choose not to use “child-free” because it evokes “carefree,” a word that implies that women who choose not to have children are immature and have no responsibilities. I use a variety of terms here, relying heavily on terms used by women quoted in Annily Campbell’s (1999) Childfree and Sterilized: Women’s Decisions and Medical Responses (London: Cassell). 2. Hird, M. J., and K. Abshoff, 2000, “Women without Children: A Contradiction in Terms?” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 31(3): 347–66. 3. Women’s intentions do change, creating unclear boundaries between voluntary and involuntary childlessness over some women’s lives. 4. Bartlett, J., 1994, Will You Be Mother? Women Who Choose to Say No (London: Virago); Campbell, 1999; Letherby, F., 2002, “Childless and Bereft? Stereotypes and Realities in Relation to ‘Voluntary’ and ‘Involuntary’ Childlessness and Womanhood,” Sociological Inquiry 72(1): 7–20; Morrell, C., 1994, Unwomanly Conduct: The Challenges of Intentional Childlessness (London: Routledge); Ramsay, K., and G. Letherby, 2006, “The Experience of Academic Non-Mothers in the Gendered University,” Gender, Work, and Organization 13(1): 25–44; Reti, I., ed., 1992, Childless by Choice: A Feminist Anthology (Santa Cruz, CA: HerBooks). 5. Morell, C. 1992. “On Needing and Finding Courage,” in Childless by Choice: A Feminist Anthology, ed. I. Reti (Santa Cruz: HerBooks), 12. 6. See Campbell 1999, 129, for a similar child-free woman’s fantasy. 7. See also ibid., 118. 8. The qualitative differences among women who want to be sterilized have been underresearched. See Campbell 1999, for a study that makes the distinction. 9. See Campbell 1999, for notable exceptions. 10. Roberts, D., 1997, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Pantheon); Lawrence, J., 2000, “The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women,” The American Indian Quarterly 24(3): 400–19; Enoch, J., 2005, “Survival Stories: Feminist Historiographic Approaches to

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Chicana Rhetorics of Sterlization Abuse,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35(3): 5–31; Schoen, J., 2005, Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Charolotte: University of North Carolina Press). 11. Roberts 1997; Lawrence 2000; Enoch 2005; Schoen 2005. 12. Cade, T., 1970, “The Pill: Genocide or Liberation,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. T. Cade (New York: Signet), 162–69. 13. Ibid., 163. 14. This argument is paraphrased from Cade 1970, 166–67. 15. Campbell 1999. 16. Ibid. 17. See http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ for additional information. 18. See http://www.prch.org. 19. See http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/sterilization. 20. Pena de la, T., 1992, “Nullipara,” in Childless by Choice: A Feminist Anthology, ed. I. Reti, (Santa Cruz: HerBooks), 59. 21. Patenaude, M., 1992, “On Not Having Children,” in Childless by Choice: A Feminist Anthology, ed. I. Reti (Santa Cruz: HerBooks), 35. 22. Letherby 2002. 23. Wager, M., 2000, “Childless by Choice? Ambivalence and the Female Identity,” Feminism and Psychology 10(3): 389–95. 24. Bartlett 1994; Campbell 1999; Gillespie, R., 2003, “Childfree and Feminine: Understanding the Gender Identity of Voluntarily Childless Women,” Gender and Society 17(1): 122–36; Morell 1994, 2000. 25. Morrell 2000, 318. 26. Ibid., 319. 27. Cited in Morrell 2000, 319. Original citation Peacock, M., 1998, Paradise, Piece by Piece (New York: Riverhead), 314. 28. May, E. T., 1995, Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 29. See my research on Black fathers, White, A. M., 2006, “African American Feminist Fathers’ Narratives of Parenting,” Journal of Black Psychology 32: 43–71. 30. Crittenden, 2001, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued (New York: Metropolitan). 31. Ibid. 32. Blair-Loy, M., 2003, Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); Crittenden 2001. 33. Hochschild, A. R., 1989, The Second Shift (New York: Penguin). 34. Bianchi, S. M., M. Milkie, L. Sayer, and J. Robinson, 2000. “Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of Household Labor,” Social Forces 79: 191–228. 35. Hird, M. J., and K. Abshoff, 2000, “Women without Children: A Contradiction in Terms?” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 31(3): 347–66. 36. Letherby 2002, 8. 37. Rich, A., 1978, Of Woman Born (New York: Bantam), 261. 38. Patenaude 1992, 36.

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39. Risman, B., 1998, “Necessity and the Invention of Mothering,” in her Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 45–71. 40. Ridgeway, C. L., and S. J. Correll, 2004, “Motherhood as a Status Characteristic,” Journal of Social Issues 60: 683–700. 41. Hird and Abshoff 2000; Morrell 2000; Wager 2000. 42. Crittenden 2000; Hird and Abshoff 2000. 43. Crittenden 2000; Rich 1978; Gillespie 2003; Wager 2000. 44. Gillespie 2003. 45. Ibid. See also Clark, J., 1970. “Motherhood,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. T. Cade (New York: Signet), 63–72. 46. Campbell 1999, 67–72. 47. Ibid., 63. 48. May 1995, 185. 49. Cited in Morrell 2000, 320. 50. Morrell 2000, 321. 51. Gillespie 2000, 231. 52. Hochschild, A. R., 1997, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (New York: Guilford). 53. Letherby 2002. 54. Smith 1997. 55. Ibid. 56. Gillespie 2003. 57. Springer, K., 1997, “Four Mission Statements,” in African American Women’s Activism, ed. K. Springer (New York: New York University Press), 38–41. 58. For similar comments made to child-free women see Gillespie 2003, 228. 59. Morrell 2000. 60. Ibid., 317. 61. Hird and Abshoff 2000. 62. Campbell, E., 1985, The Childless Marriage: An Exploratory Study of Couples Who Do Not Want Children (London: Tavistock); Gillespie, R., 2000, “When No Means No: Disbelief, Disregard, and Deviance as Discourses of Voluntary Childlessness,” Women’s Studies International Forum 23(2): 223–34. 63. Hird and Abshoff 2000, 354. 64. Hird and Abshoff 2000. 65. Morrell 2000, 321.

Part II

Community Building

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Chapter 4

¡Ola, Hermano! A Black Latino Feminist Organizes Men

Omar Freilla

Black, Latino, and Broke I’m from the Bronx, in New York City. I grew up in a mostly Latino/a and African American neighborhood that was like an extended family. I identified myself as both Latino and Black by the time I started high school—partly because of the brown face I saw staring at me in the mirror every morning. I have always had to struggle with the way people separate Latinos/as and Blacks when dealing with racial issues. However, I also identified deeply with the legacy of antiracist struggle and grassroots activism that African Americans were known for throughout the world. During high school, the popularity of dreadlocks grew, and it seemed like every other rap artist was into connecting with “Mother Africa.” My acceptance of my own African roots grew stronger during those years. Most of my friends both in and out of school were African American. I also had a small number of older Latina and Latino mentors—such as a woman named Marta Vega who was founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center—who showed me what it meant to be an Afrocentric Latino. When I attended Morehouse, a historically Black men’s college in the South, it was mainly an African American men’s college. There were so few Latinos at the college that we were practically invisible. Most of the African American students and faculty had a difficult time conceiving the notion of Blackness as anything other than being African American. Often, when I tell African Americans who aren’t from New York that I am Latino, they usually say, “Oh, I thought you were Black.” When I say, “Yeah, I am also Black,”

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they look confused. In order to divide and conquer, White supremacists have constructed a rigid idea of race that most people have fully accepted. This uncritical acceptance has made it difficult to explain the diverse racial and ethnic layers that construct my identity, such that I have spent many years and a lot of time trying to explain who I am.1 Conversations about my racial and ethnic identity can be incredibly frustrating. Compounding matters, my experiences as a Black Latino have included an intimate knowledge of understanding what it also means to be broke. My mother and I never had much money, and for a while we were on welfare and had to use food stamps. She taught me how to treasure small things instead of material wealth. As a result, I have never been the type of person to spend a lot of money or be extravagant. I certainly don’t think that being poor makes you feminist, because plenty of men are broke and can be the most sexist people on the street. However, growing up poor in my neighborhood helped shape my desire for change and my interest in grassroots activism. As an activist, I learned that different people catch hell in different ways and that I cannot expect others to take my experiences of injustice seriously if I am not taking their experiences seriously. When I first entered Morehouse College, I thought the men at the college were going to teach me how to be a man. The legendary “Morehouse Man” was known throughout the region and among all historically Black universities. To my surprise, however, it was the women at the Black women’s college down the street—Spelman College—who taught me my most valuable lessons regarding manhood, and most importantly, personhood.

The Importance of Women Friendships and Reevaluation Counseling My friendships with women are intricately connected to the influence of my mother and my father, who by sheer example showed me that women and men are capable of being friends. My parents were never married and dissolved their romantic relationship before I was born. However, their actions as separate individuals influenced me significantly. My mother, who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York alone in the early sixties, has always been staunchly independent. She is a short woman who loves visiting new places and watching the Discovery Channel. She would confront any man who tried to tell her what her place was, long before I had ever heard of feminism. My father, whom I would visit occasionally and who had also emigrated from the Dominican Republic, was very committed in his relationships with women. He recently got married, and I have known him to be involved with only two other women before this marriage. His previous relationships with women were long-term and ended only after the women waged unsuccessful battles with

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cancer. He lovingly served as their caretakers and taught me that men could be nurturing. Both of my parents’ examples shaped my inclination to have meaningful relationships with women, whether platonic or romantic. During high school I dated a sister who was Haitian American. At the time she didn’t declare herself a feminist, but she was an independent young woman, and some of her beliefs and actions were undoubtedly feminist. She was a political organizer; we both were. We didn’t go to the same high school, but we knew each other from political activities, and we kept in touch when we went away to college, because she attended Spelman, the Black women’s college down the street from the men’s college, Morehouse, where I was enrolled. She became actively involved in promoting women’s health and safety issues. We planned events on our separate campuses where she would speak on a panel that I organized at Morehouse, and I would be on a panel that she organized at Spelman. Although we dated in high school, we were platonic friends in college who shared similar activist interests regarding the uplift of Black communities. I met another independent sister from Spelman College who became a really good platonic friend of mine while we were volunteering for a conference sponsored by the National Black Women’s Health Project.2 At the conference, she introduced me to people who were engaged in reevaluation counseling, a form of therapy used to free yourself from the effects of past painful experiences.3 The process teaches you how to emotionally express your pain and then move beyond it. By learning to express yourself emotionally, you become more effective in looking out for your interests and the interests of others. Plus, you learn to act more successfully against injustices because you have released your emotional baggage. During the conference, I took part in a reevaluation counseling session for men where the facilitator asked us, “What do you like about being a man, and what don’t you like about being a man?” These were questions I had never thought about or been asked. It took me a while to admit that the things I often enjoyed about being a man were privileges often denied women. They were subtle, everyday things I had always taken for granted. For example, I am rarely interrupted or cut off by someone in a conversation and have come to expect that kind of courtesy even from strangers. It is just one of many small ways I have grown accustomed to flexing my authoritative muscle and presence in a conversation. However, it never occurred to me that women aren’t necessarily granted the same level of authority and respect when they are talking until women pointed this out to me. I used to think of social injustice strictly as a political issue, outside the realm of my personal life. I did not question how the social injustices I had experienced throughout my life affected me daily. Reevaluation counseling sessions helped me see that what I thought was purely a political problem at the societal level was really something much deeper that affected me personally and emotionally. As a result, I developed an interest in changing how I felt

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internally in addition to changing the political conditions around me. I also came to realize that there were things that I did to other people that perpetuated the system I was organizing against! Allow me to elaborate on my earlier example regarding how interrupting people and flexing one’s muscles verbally can be oppressive, particularly to women. Like many men, I had developed the bad habit of being long-winded in meetings, and if women were also present, some of the other men and I would automatically end up dominating the discussion. I would put out a position and defend it using any opportunity to make my point. This style of speaking meant, in practice, cutting people off whenever the opportunity arose, and the people being cut off were usually women. It was not intentional, but despite my best intentions, it silenced the women present. Slowly, I realized I was spending so much time talking that I was rarely listening. My desire was to build community, so I had to learn how to listen more—especially to women—and talk less. I also began to realize that my everyday speaking style helped maintain an emotional wall between me and those around me. I spoke in an impersonal manner when voicing my opinion, especially my feelings. Instead of discussing what I personally felt about various issues, I did not express or “own” my feelings and chose to refer to what “others” felt or what “you” felt or what “they” felt, but not what “I” felt. I really dislike how men are taught to create an emotional distance between themselves and everyone else. Call it distance, a mask, a wall—whatever—it is something I recognized mostly in other men that I did not appreciate. I sincerely wanted to be more open in my relationships and to share honestly about my feelings, but I didn’t know how to begin. Reevaluation counseling helped me stop to think about how I benefit from male privilege (e.g., using my voice in an authoritative manner to cut off, silence, and intimidate women) and how this privilege actually stifles my own growth as a human being, by creating a wall between me and others, particularly people I love. After the National Black Women’s Health Project’s conference my new friend and I would get together and talk about feminism, sexism, and the different ways that men and women perceive things. The conversations were powerful and challenged me to rethink a variety of issues related to gender. I took what I had learned from these conversations, and some of what I had learned about reevaluation counseling, and used the information to facilitate discussions with other Black men. I really grew as a human being that summer and was able to make these connections thanks to my platonic friendship with this sister. She had a real impact on me. However, it was the woman whom I dated for almost four years who had the greatest impact on me in my efforts to unlearn sexism. She too attended Spelman College, and we met on our way to a Washington, D.C., rally right after the Rodney King verdict and the uprisings in Atlanta that followed.4 We

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were both part of a radical Black student organization that had developed after the uprisings. During the years that we were dating, we would have ongoing discussions about sexism, feminism, and a wide range of issues. She was the person who first got me thinking seriously about feminism and what it truly means to be actively against patriarchy. Although our relationship has long since ended, she had an unquestionable and profound influence on me (keep reading for details about this relationship).

The Significance of Private and Public Feminist Activism My previous high school and activist experiences had prepared me for what I would face when I got to college. In 1992, in the wake of the Atlanta student uprisings and the police repression that followed the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who brutally beat Black motorist Rodney King, I joined a handful of students from several Atlanta-based Black colleges and formed a radical student organization. One of the other cofounders, who later became a close friend, said to me one day that he believed that all men were sexist because we live in a sexist culture and reap the benefits of male privilege associated with the culture. I had heard the idea expressed by a woman years earlier but could not accept it as true at the time. However, perhaps hearing it from a man this time—and a Black man—I more seriously took the message to heart. Therefore, within our new organization we decided to include sexism as an issue we would address. Our platform stated that we were “against the evils of imperialism, capitalism, classism, racism, and sexism.” Yet, over time, sexism became a big problem in our group regardless of our official platform. At first we would always make sure that spokespersons for the group would be a man and a woman featured together, in order to ensure that women had equal public representation. However, over time men’s voices became dominant, and we became rather fascinated with the militarism of the Black Panthers and less concerned with community-building efforts. For instance, we had developed a Saturday breakfast program for kids that we modeled after the Black Panthers’ breakfast program. However, gradually we started emphasizing self-defense training, and men started to play a dominant role in public events. Many women members drifted away, including the woman I was dating. She was known as the feminist voice in the group, so when she left the group things really worsened. Before she left, she confronted me about the group’s sexism. She accused me of being antisexist around her privately but trying to look cool around other guys instead of checking them on their sexism when I was in public. She asked me, “How are you going to confront the sexism of the other guys in addition to being antisexist around me?” She suggested that a Black men’s group against

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sexism would be a good idea and that I should organize it. At first I could only respond with disbelief and sarcastically replied, “Say what?!” It took a while for the idea to take root. Upon reflection, I realized that I had been exposed to many different ideas and experiences during my years in college. For instance, I had made many friends with Black women feminists who attended Spelman College and the surrounding Black colleges in Atlanta whom I would positively describe as “women on fire!” They were powerful, and the sister I was dating was one of those powerful Black feminists. She brought me the farthest on the road to antisexism and feminist politics. We were always debating different issues, and she was the first person to get me to recognize some of my own actions as sexist. She would point out subtle things I did unconsciously, such as valuing a woman’s comments less if I thought the woman physically unattractive. She also noted how my refusal to challenge the sexism of other men made me complicit in the sexist act because I was enabling or allowing men to believe these acts were not offensive to me. She was also the person who first told me that a Black man could be a feminist. In fact, most of the Black feminists I encountered at the time believed that a Black man—any man—could potentially be a feminist. Not all feminists agree on this issue, but all of the Black feminists I had encountered up to that point thought a man could be a feminist.5 The sister I dated used to talk about a Black male professor whom she once described as a feminist. One day I said, “Well, why is he a feminist?” She proceeded to give me a list of reasons. Then I said, “Why can’t I be a feminist? I can be that.” She pretty much said, “Then act like one.” Shortly thereafter, I took a class at Spelman College, Images of Women in the Media, that she recommended, and I loved it. The class was taught by a well-known Black feminist writer named Gloria Wade-Gayles.6 She was such a beautiful person because she loved her work deeply and treasured every opportunity to share the world with her students. As we critiqued the world around us, we also discussed the writings of Black feminists such as bell hooks,7 Beverly Guy-Sheftall,8 and Audre Lorde.9 During my time in this class, my consciousness skyrocketed! It was inevitable that my growing awareness of sexism and patriarchy would collide directly with the sexist dynamics within the radical student organization that had become very dear to me. I started confronting members of the group about their sexist language—simple things such as using “he or she” not just “he” when referring to both women and men.10 Some of the men in the group made me aware that I was “getting on their nerves.” I started feeling ostracized the way some of the women had felt before they resigned from the group. At first, a few men in the group grew tired of me stressing that I was both Black and Latino. However, as time continued, some grew most tired of my feminist politics. They started to refer to me as “some really weird guy” and tried to put me down by saying I must be

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“pussy whipped” by the woman I was dating. Shortly after these confrontations, I decided it was time for me to move on. I resigned from the group. Meanwhile, Professor Gloria Wade-Gayles’ class was organizing its annual feminist activity on Spelman’s campus. The previous year her class sponsored a burning of sexist images. They made a bonfire, and women came and threw in names of men who had raped them, compact discs with derogatory lyrics, magazines with negative images of Black women, and other sexist media symbols. My class decided to organize a speak out on Freaknic, Atlanta’s Black College Spring Break weekend festival where nudity and the lewdest, “freakiest” behavior are encouraged. It is also a weekend where many women are raped, sexually harassed, and generally disrespected by male participants. I decided to announce the organization of an antisexist men’s group at the speak out and asked a friend of mine to help me recruit members.

Protesting Freaknic I waited until the end of the Freaknic speak out to get up and made a rather long-winded comment about Freaknic and the objectification of women. Then, I told the brothers present that we needed to organize a group that would help us correct our sexist behavior and put in check the sexist behavior of other men. I asked all of the men in the room if any of them were interested in being a part of an antisexist men’s group, and if so, to meet me after the speak out. At the end of the speakout some of the men stood up and came to the front of the room where I was sitting. We sat in a circle and planned our first meeting. That’s how we started Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism. The next year Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism (BMES) held a protest march during Freaknic. To protest Freaknic is a pretty bold move because Freaknic is a wild, Spring Break event in which most Black college students in the area anticipate. The mayor of Atlanta was cracking down on the excessive drinking, traffic jams, and partially nude displays associated with Freaknic. In response, the Freaknic supporters launched a counterprotest claiming that they had a right to party and that the mayor had no right to take that right away! Our organization too was critical of the mayor’s pandering to Atlanta’s White middle-class residents who were unduly frightened and angered by the thousands of young Black college students partying in the parks and streets and causing traffic jams. However, BMES wanted to drive home the point that the event is inherently sexist and misogynistic, given its emphasis on women as “freaks,” “bitches,” and “hoes.” Therefore, BMES gathered a small group of maybe 20 students, mainly men with a few women, and marched with signs while chanting phrases such as, “We got to let ’em know, a woman ain’t a bitch or a hoe.” We borrowed this slogan from rap artist Queen Latifah’s popular song “U-N-I-T-Y.”

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We marched through three Black college campuses—the coed campus of Clark-Atlanta University, the all-women’s Spelman College, and the all-men’s Morehouse College where the march ended. It was raining, and we were all soaking wet, but we chanted nevertheless, “We got to let ’em know, a woman ain’t a bitch or a hoe.” As we circled the middle of Morehouse’s campus, a few men cursed at us and yelled ignorant responses from their windows. But most people nodded their heads in support saying, “That’s a good thing to do.” Some students told us later, “We saw you all in the rain; you all get respect; we think you’re crazy, but it was good that you were out there!” In addition to the Freaknic protest march, BMES organized informal discussion groups on gender issues. Sometimes the discussions were for men only. Other times they were coed. All of the discussions were challenging, but the discussions where women were present always seemed to move the men in the room further in identifying our sexism. The women would “call you out” on your sexism and push the discussion to another level. Their comments reminded us (men) that we must be mindful of how our arrogance and sexist indoctrination mistakenly lead us to assume that we have all of the answers and that we know how to ask all of the right questions. BMES sponsored panel discussions, workshops, and a conference at Morehouse College in 1996 entitled, “Black, Male, and Feminist/Womanist.” The 1996 conference was our attempt to reach out and connect with other Black men beyond our student circles. We wanted to reach everyday Black men in addition to Black male scholars and community activists who recognized their responsibility to challenge sexism and the benefits they reaped regarding their own humanity by embracing feminism. However, organizing a conference was a new experience for all of us, and in retrospect, we tried to cover too many issues with very few personnel at our disposal. We also tried to cover a wide range of presentation styles beyond the workshop/lecture format, mixing healing ceremonies, open “mic” poetry sessions, and film screenings. The broad spectrum of workshops included the following: the effects of sexism in media; hip hop and sexism; patriarchal religious doctrine and practices; sexism on college campuses; and misogynist practice within the Black Liberation Movement. We also included training sessions and support groups on antisexist parenting, antihomophobia practices, and healthy intimate relationships. The turnout was less than what we had hoped—fewer than 100 Black men and women—but the people who came were activists, artists, educators, and students from around the country, particularly the South. They came with an excitement that was contagious and as one participant noted, “the conference was small in numbers but big in heart.” Writer, scholar, and activist bell hooks gave an inspiring and heart-filled keynote address that kept the feet of all of the Black men in the room to the fire! She and many others who participated (e.g., writer and activist Rebecca Walker, documentary filmmaker Aishah Sim-

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mons, and Robert Allen of the Black Scholar) were open and honest about their feelings, hopes, and frustrations. The conference was an oasis where Black men and women were able to commune and gain new understanding, strength, and support for our movement and mission as feminist and womanist activists.

We Are One I hold the belief that while we may interpret each other as separate beings with separate bodies, at our core we are all made up of the same stuff—the same energy—as everything around us. This energy connects us to each other and everything that exists. Within the environmental justice movement there is the idea that we are all a part of the environment, and the environment is all encompassing. My environment is connected to my spirituality as well as my feminist beliefs, and my private and public expressions of myself as a man are also connected. I also recognize that what affects a woman inevitably affects me. Her experience of sexism is going to be vastly different from mine, but it still affects me whether I am aware of it or not because we are all a part of the same stuff; we share the same space. At the end of the day, we are one.

Notes 1. See Hintzen, P., and J. Rahier, 2003, Problematizing Blackness: Self-Ethnographies by Black Immigrants to the United States (New York: Routledge). 2. Avery, B., 1990, “Breathing Life into Ourselves: The Evolution of the National Black Women’s Health Project,” in The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves, ed. E. C. White (Seattle: Seal), 4–10. 3. Jackins, H., 2001, Fundamentals of Co-Counseling Manual: Elementary Counselors’ Manual for Beginning Classes in Re-Evaluation Counseling (Seattle: Rational Island). 4. Gooding-Williams, R., 1993, Reading Rodney King, Reading Urban Uprising (New York: Routledge). 5. White, A., 2001/2002, “Ain’t I a Feminist? Black Men as Advocates of Feminism,” Womanist Theory and Research 3: 28–34. 6. Wade-Gayles, G., 1997, No Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Gender in Black Women’s Fiction (New York: Pilgrim). 7. hooks, b., 1981, Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End). 8. Guy-Sheftall, B., ed., 1995, Words of Fire: African American Feminist Thought (New York: New). 9. Lorde, A., 1984, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: Crossing). 10. Doyle, M., 1995, The A-Z of Non-Sexist Language (New York: Trafalgar Square).

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Chapter 5

“Sister Outsiders” How the Students and I Came Out

Mary Anne Adams

Being “out” is vital to my well-being, and using words such as lesbian and feminist to describe myself is as natural as breathing! I don’t use the phrase same-gender loving or even womanist, because I am not trying to make my life more palatable for Black folks or anyone else. My efforts to develop a scholarship fund for “out” Black lesbians was considered by some to be groundbreaking, but I didn’t see it that way; it was simply my desire to give back and help others as so many had helped me. I am continually inspired by the essays of the late Audre Lorde because they challenge Black lesbians, in particular, to embrace all of whom we are in whatever work we do. No doubt about it, Audre Lorde, a poet laureate of New York State who taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, loved audacious statements and actions. In Sister Outsider Lorde writes: Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself—a Black woman warrior poet doing my work—come to ask you, are you doing yours?1 Lorde’s life and writings inspired a group of Black lesbians to found the organization ZAMI, Inc.,2 a not-for-profit collective for lesbians of African descent residing in the Atlanta metropolitan area. ZAMI’s mission is to empower and affirm the lives of lesbians of African descent through advocacy, education, leadership development, scholarship funds, support/discussion groups, social outreach, and other activities. The organization also provides a forum and affirming space for the voices of lesbian writers of color. ZAMI sponsors special programs to develop the leadership potential of young lesbians and to honor the life and

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legacy of Audre Lorde. Although I was not a founding member, I founded and became the primary organizer for its Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund. I am the current board chair of ZAMI and its former executive director. The Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund was started initially to support the continuing education of “out” lesbians of African descent who are making significant contributions to their communities. Being “out” is defined in ZAMI as acknowledging lesbian/gay identity to oneself and to family and/or friends.3 The story behind the scholarship fund, like that of many of its recipients, and my own life have unfolded in similar ways. Like Audre Lorde, the scholarship fund, its recipients and I have struggled to find our way, come of age, get through the fire, find joy and keep standing tall. Audre reminds us: The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized.4

Finding Our Way I was born on a beautiful fall day in the rolling hills of north Mississippi just four short months after the historical Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. This ruling declared mandatory segregation in 21 states unconstitutional. Even though this decision wouldn’t have an immediate impact on many black communities, it would later change my life in ways both large and small. I’m the second oldest child born into a family of 10 children—5 boys and 5 girls. I was a very shy, very introverted child who felt things very deeply. My best friends in early childhood were books that allowed me to dream of infinite possibilities. My family lived in 9 different places by the time I was 16 because we were often unable to pay the rent and would move just on the heels of eviction. My mother was constantly overwhelmed by life. She was pregnant more often than not and died of ovarian cancer at age 43. Growing up, I remember feeling out of place and sometimes disjointed from my family. My favorite uncle molested me when I was 5 years old, and the part of me that had been innocent and open turned inward and became more withdrawn. As far back as I can remember, I was told that I was born with “a veil over my face,” which meant I was born with special gifts. Those “gifts” sounded like a lot of responsibility to me!5 I was often frightened when relatives reminded me that I was “special.” I was described as a “brainy child” and bookworm by the neighbors, and, most important, I was allowed by my relatives to enjoy being

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smart. My grandmother would show me off to her friends at age six or seven and have them give me any huge book in their house to read. Even if I didn’t know the words, they didn’t either, so I would guess and still be affirmed by them. Reading saved my life. I couldn’t dance or play ball, and I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin, but I won spelling bees and read and wrote some of the best stories, given my love for the written word and the ability to enjoy my own company. The words of Audre Lorde speak to my heart: “I can afford to look at myself directly, risk the pain of experiencing who I am not, and learn to savor the sweetness of who I am. I can make friends with all the different pieces of me, liked and disliked.”6 These words also speak to the heartfelt desires of most recipients of the Audre Lorde Scholarships. We yearn and ultimately learn how to make friends with all the different pieces of ourselves that define us—whether it is our Blackness, our humble beginnings, our different abilities, our spirituality, and, of course, our sexuality. I have always felt strongly, as a primary organizer of the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund, that if we, as organizers, were going to ask the students to come out, we had to be out as well. Many of us have had to “find a way outta no way,” as Black folks often say. Scholarship recipient Angela Britt was homeless throughout her first year of high school yet managed to become active in the Gay-Straight Alliance, eventually serving as its president during her senior year. Cindy Pierre-Louis’s mother threw her out of the house after she proclaimed her queer sexual identity at the age of 18. Cindy remained homeless for three years, but she managed to find transitional living programs until going away to Antioch College with the support of an Audre Lorde Scholarship. Sybille Ngo Nyeck was forced to flee her native Cameroon, in West Africa, after being denounced as a lesbian and thrown in jail. As the first woman in Cameroon to initiate a dialogue beyond heterosexuality as the norm, she has helped win asylum in the United States for others who experience similar abuses, through her numerous publications and speeches on human rights since coming to this country in 2003. Sadly, there are countless stories of Black lesbians trying to find their way. However, despite others choosing to disconnect when we choose to out ourselves, Audre’s words comfort us: “I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.”7

Coming of Age When I was 12 years old, my life changed in a profound way and directly helped me become the activist that I am today. In the mid to late 60s there was an influx of young black civil rights activists who descended on Oxford and moved into public housing developments and working-class neighborhoods.

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They opened a legal clinic and represented folks who couldn’t afford high-priced lawyers, taught in public schools, and agitated. Under the leadership of a young local minister, Rev. Wayne Johnson, they became the pied pipers to many of us. Rev. Johnson started a coop grocery store and day care center that offered some of us an opportunity for employment. He rented a house near my junior high school and called it the “Black House.” It was a place where civil rights workers, community organizations, and people in the neighborhood gathered. Lou Myers, the managing attorney of Legal Services, and other leaders of organizations designed to help the poor would meet at the Black House for strategy sessions. Black students who had integrated the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) were also trying to organize a Black student union on campus and would meet at the Black House. Even though I was younger than the others, I was allowed to hang around, listen, and just be myself without any explanation. I spent all of my after school hours and weekend mornings at the Black House. I was taught to listen, to speak, to read, to write, to protest, to advocate, to believe in the power of social justice, and to always fight to better myself and my community. I was taught that I was Black, I was taught that I was beautiful, and I was taught that I was inferior to no one. Learning Black history and Black literature at the Black House allowed me to politicize rather than internalize the “white’s only” and “colored only” fountains I saw at the health departments, to look with disdain at segregated seating at the movie theater, and to read as many books as I could at the segregated library. The young people at the Black House were encouraged to help publish and distribute The Soul Force newspaper. Helping with the newspaper was our way of saying “This is our house, too.” We felt safe there and came of age in an atmosphere that was political, affirming, and a home away from home. The adults at the Black House encouraged us to pursue higher education. Joe Delaney, a writer, social worker, and teacher almost always told me when he saw me, “Baby, you are beautiful.” After a while I started to believe him! He and many others at the house also nurtured my writing. I wrote a play about Martin Luther King Jr., and the other young people at the house and I put it on publicly. The older activists taught us organizing skills. As a result, during adolescence I attained an important set of skills that I honed over the years. Desegregation was slowly occurring in public education in Mississippi. I’ll never forget how, when I was in elementary school, the National Guard was sent to prevent James Meredith from integrating Ole Miss. Schools were closed the day he attempted to go to class; indeed the entire town was shut down for a week as White protesters outside the university denounced his right to be the first Black student enrolled there.8 Some 17 years later, I entered this bastion of desegregation at age 16 because I was told by my community that integrating Ole Miss was “my cross to bear” and would pave the way for Black

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students who wanted to enroll in the future. I did not question my responsibility, although I pined for Tougaloo College, located outside of Jackson, Mississippi, and still dreamed about majoring in journalism. I eventually decided to major in sociology and social work at Ole Miss and blossomed under the leadership of Jeanette Jennings. Jeanette was the first Black professor at Ole Miss and taught in the School of Social Work. During my years at Ole Miss, Black students numbered around 200, out of approximately 13,000. However, we stuck together and made the best of some really tough times. We had only a few cars among us but pooled our resources in ways that created an extended family. We had no allegiance to the university itself, given its racist history, and we mostly ignored the racist White students who were the grandchildren of wealthy plantation owners. I was campaign manager for the first Black female student to run for Miss Ole Miss, and even though she didn’t win, we made our presence known. Throughout college, I volunteered at community agencies and campus organizations, further developing my community organizing skills. I could not bear to witness injustice. So when I came out as a lesbian, I brought all of my selves to the table. A philosophy of religion course had a tremendous impact on me. The course taught me that people could be agnostic, atheist, Buddhist, and a host of other things that expressed viable philosophies about life, religion, and being whole. At the time, I was also reading poet Nikki Giovanni and material about the Communist Party and Angela Davis. Playfully I renamed myself “Mary Anne Nikki Angela Adams” to describe my budding identity. I started calling myself a feminist and was devouring Ms. and Essence magazines and occasionally hung out at the White hippie house The Earth. I began dating males at the age of 14 but never felt wholly emotionally connected to them. They could turn me on sexually, but there was always a disconnect that I couldn’t name. I only understood what that “something” was when I fell in love with a woman—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me just say that I always felt different from other people in many ways, so it did not surprise me that I felt different regarding my sexuality. The philosophy of religion course sharpened my feminist sensitivities and made me question, more than ever, how institutions dictate what is right, wrong, normal, or abnormal not only for Black people but for most people. After I graduated from Ole Miss I ended up living with one of my aunts and her husband in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, under the pretext that I was going to join the military. Then, accepting the fact that I never really wanted to join the military because I could never, ever pledge allegiance to the unjust policies of the United States and never believed in any man’s war, I took a job at a nursery school on the army base and spent the rest of my time reading, writing, and reflecting. I started to come to grips with my sexuality during this

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period and wrote a very long letter (about 25 pages) to a friend, telling her that I thought I was bisexual. I had met an older woman on the base who was married and had children, and she used the term bisexual to describe herself; I immediately started using the term to describe myself. She was in her mid30s and worked with me in the nursery. She was willing to be my lover, but I was a romantic and wanted my first same-sex lover to be someone I was in love with and have all the other qualities that are associated with being in a committed relationship. After about a year I left Kentucky, because life on the army base was too restrictive for me, with all its rules and formalities (like the requirement to salute the flag). I went to live with one of my younger sisters back in Oxford. Audre Lorde’s words aptly describe what I was experiencing: Learning to love ourselves as Black women goes beyond a simplistic insistence that “Black is beautiful.” It goes beyond and deeper than a surface appreciation of Black beauty, although that is certainly a good beginning. . . . I have to learn to love myself before I can love you or accept your loving. You have to learn to love yourself before you can love me or accept my loving. . . . Until now, there has been little that taught us how to be kind to each other. To the rest of the world, yes, but not to ourselves. There have been few external examples of how to treat another Black woman with kindness, deference, tenderness or an appreciative smile in passing, just because she IS; and understanding of each other’s shortcomings because we have been somewhere close to that, ourselves. When last did you compliment another sister, give recognition to her specialness?9 Thanks to my many experiences with older activists in the Black House, I had grown from a shy, rather introverted kid to a woman who was finding her voice. Black lawyers, social workers, and other activists taught me that I was as good as anyone—if not better! As a result, I became an outspoken activist and began to learn how to “color outside the lines” drawn for Black women—those awful lines designed to limit our space and place in the world. I will never forget how they believed in me and guided me. Just as I was nurtured by older activists, ZAMI members and donors who contribute to the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund want to create a nurturing space for students who dare to be all of who they are. The scholarship fund was originally established to help empower and affirm Black lesbians and to envelope them with the support of a community, hence our emphasis on community activism as an award criterion. Audre Lorde constantly emphasized the importance of community:

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My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our difference. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living.10 In addition to financial aid, we also make an effort to provide a community for scholarship recipients.

Getting through the Fire After returning to Oxford, I began working at the coop that Rev. Johnson had established, and I also worked with mentally challenged kids. Soon after, I was hired by Melba McAfee—a fierce activist sister who worked as the executive director of the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives—and moved to Jackson, Mississippi. This work was an excellent fit for my idealism and notions of social justice. We spent much of our time traveling around rural Mississippi offering skill-based programs to farmers and small business owners who needed to acquire skills such as accounting and organizational development. Melba mentored me and supported me when my mother became ill and lovingly reminded me during some of the most difficult moments, “As long as I have a job, you have a job.” Around this time, my mother began to complain of back pain and chronic constipation. She also looked like she was about to give birth again, which was perplexing because she had had her tubes tied three years earlier after her 10th child. After becoming deathly ill, she agreed to see a doctor and subsequently received a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She was immediately hospitalized, and the doctors tried to shrink the tumor. My sister Loretta and I assumed full responsibility for our 7 younger siblings, ranging in age from 3 to 16. She became the homemaker, while I worked full-time to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. On weekends, I would give her a break and watch the kids so she could spend time with her boyfriend because the two of them also had a baby together. Spending time with her boyfriend and their baby on the weekends meant a lot to her. We tried to get our oldest brother to take some of the younger siblings, but he was married and refused. So my sister and I cared for all of them while my mother was in the hospital. She was in and out of the hospital, and on a few occasions, we thought she was on her deathbed.

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During this time, one of my younger sisters, Linda, age nine, suddenly lost her ability to walk and talk. We admitted her to a children’s hospital in Memphis, Tennessee (a one-hour drive from Oxford, Mississippi) to see a specialist for what turned out to be a rare form of rheumatic heart disease. Everyone in the family had to help her because she was wheelchair-bound for several months. Gradually, she regained her ability to walk and talk. Meanwhile, my mother remained in the hospital for one year and was allowed brief visits home by her doctors during that very difficult time. Often, she would stay with my grandmother because she was not well enough to care for herself and all the kids. One day my mother’s social worker called, saying that our grandmother was upsetting my mother by telling her she was dying of cancer because she was a sinner! My mother later left the hospital, moved back home, and started exercising control over the family in ways that made it difficult for my sister and me to continue caring for the kids. As my mother began to usurp our authority, my sister and I gave up trying to help. At one point, my mother grew angry and banished us from the house. Sad to say, she eventually went back to the hospital and never came home again. When my mother finally made her transition, my grandmother did not want to take any of the younger siblings into her home, and people encouraged me to put them in foster care. However, making that choice was unconscionable to me. Eventually I ended up relocating the oldest kids (two girls and two boys, ranging in age from 9 to 16) into my house in Jackson. My sister took one of the girls and two of the boys, ages 4, 6, and 8. My 16-year-old brother was homesick, and within a couple of weeks moved back to Oxford and rented a room from a neighborhood widow. With three kids to support, I developed a social network with a group of Black social justice activists who sold real estate during the day to support their passion for creative writing and community organizing. They put their heads together, and somehow Nayo—a published poet and performer who also sold real estate—found a brand new house for the kids and me. After moving into our new home, I found work as a rehabilitation counselor and settled into raising my siblings. I grew up and became a woman, all the while teaching them to be self-sufficient, independent, and self-loving. The mantra in our household became, “I am not your mother; I’m your sister, and we are all in this family together.” During this period in my life I subscribed to the Gay Community News (a Boston-based publication)11 and was reading Audre Lorde and the writings of other lesbian and gay authors. I had also become involved with the Southern Rural Women’s Network. At one of the organization’s soirees I met an African American musician who was playing the guitar and performing for the event. Willow was tall, lanky, had big hands and feet, and was the first woman I had ever met who wore men’s shoes with intent! She was a student at Jackson State University12 and was very assertive. Her mother was also a lesbian and a

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professor at Jackson State. Also around that time Maria, a nontraditional student and African American lesbian, had returned to Tougaloo College to finish her bachelor’s degree after being out of school for a while.13 Maria was from Washington, D.C., and quite worldly. She had been involved with Sisterfire, the first music festival for women of color.14 I was attracted to them both and equally intoxicated with the fact that they were interested in me. So I started romantic relationships with both. Before Willow and Maria, I had been dating a worldly, politically conscious, Afrocentric man who had two children. I, of course, was taking care of my siblings, and he wanted us to get married and blend our families. Although I dug him as a person, I eventually had to break it off and shortly thereafter came out to him. Months later, he saw me at a festival with Maria and walked behind us, calling us horrible, homophobic names. Of course, people in my extended circle began gossiping that I was gay, and I never denied it. Once I came out, I came out to everyone. And after I fell in love with Maria, I finally understood what heterosexuals were talking about when they walked around “goo-goo-ga-ga!” I had never experienced the level of attraction and wholeness with a man that I had finally and delightfully experienced with a woman. Eventually I saw a therapist to inquire as to whether I should come out to the kids, and she replied, “Only if they ask you.” I did not agree with her advice. I believe African American children need to see different kinds of loving and ways of being in the world, and as their pillar, I needed to say out loud, “This is who I am; this is how I move through the world, and it is good.” Audre Lorde captures the wholeness I felt: “When we define ourselves, when I define myself, the place in which I am like you and the place in which I am not like you, I’m not excluding you from the joining—I’m broadening the joining.”15 Many Black lesbians have experienced “going through the fire,” and starting the scholarship fund caused a fire to spread that ultimately strengthened my resolve as an out Black lesbian. Initially, I did not get the level of support for the scholarship fund that I had expected from the African American LGBT community in Atlanta because some people did not think it appropriate or even ethical to require that award recipients be out. However, I think because some of them were closeted, they found it difficult to accept this requirement, and many struggled with internalized homophobia. To me, on the surface, remaining closeted certainly seemed easier than being out. On a deeper level, I wanted us to focus our energies on financially supporting Black lesbians who had to grapple with the reality—the difficulties as well as the positive, activist implications—of being out. I have seen many Black lesbians both in and outside the academy struggling financially. Often their families have abandoned them, making it difficult for them to sustain themselves emotionally and economically. Therefore, I decided to accept donations from White lesbians rather than remove the requirement of being out. I wanted to send a message to Black

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lesbians that when they take the risks involved in acknowledging who they are with a sense of pride, the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund will support them emotionally and financially in their efforts to attain a higher education and be whole in the process. Sharon Thomas, who got a scholarship in 2003, was pursuing a unique dream of wholeness that most people find unthinkable when ZAMI received her application. Sharon had boldly left her comfortable job of 20 years to return to school at age 39. After being in school for two months, she suffered a stroke that left her debilitated. Through hard work and perseverance, Sharon stayed in school and was a senior at the University of Washington in Tacoma, pursuing a degree in mass communications, at the time of her award. Prior to going back, she started a computer technology center for lesbians, where she still volunteers as a tutor. Another scholarship recipient, Nina “Ricci” Wilson, a grandmother, decided in 1983 that she wanted a different life for her three grandchildren. She obtained her GED and was able to move beyond earning minimum wage, while never being in the closet about her sexuality. As I write, she attends Durham Technical Community College where she is pursuing an associate’s degree. Kawanna Glen, one of the few out lesbians at Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina, conducts programming that allows discussion of homosexuality in a constructive manner, as a resident assistant in a dormitory. Kaila Adia Story is a doctoral student in African American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia; she teaches undergraduate courses that emphasize how Black women have been working together for centuries to change the world that sometimes suffocates us. Sharon “Sherri” Jackson, a former member of the steering committee of the Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays (CBLG), used her scholarship to get a degree in business administration from Columbia Southern University in Alabama. Melissa Gordon began her organizing and activism in high school, when she attempted to start a lesbian student union. She also founded Project Sunshine, a mentoring program designed to instill pride and create opportunities for Black girls, and is currently majoring in social work at Tennessee State University. Leslie Johnson, former copresident of Black and Queer at Stanford University and an industrial design major, spearheaded a new program, Café Q, designed to build bridges between the LGBT community and a diverse array of student organizations. These scholars boldly demonstrate Audre Lorde’s affirmation: I integrate all of the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all of my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living.16

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Their community efforts are reinforced by ZAMI’s staunch commitment to support them.

Finding Joy During this period of my life, I was gradually being introduced to lesbian and gay culture through my friends Willow and Maria. I also got involved with the Mississippi Gay Alliance, run by an older working-class White activist named Eddie Sandifer. Eddie had long been involved in queer organizing. He was a member of the Mattachine Society in the 1950s (one of the earliest American gay movement organizations) as well as an officer of the tristate Wicker Research Studies (WRS) (essentially a secretive gay rights organization subversively described using science and education language). During the early 1980s, when a diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence, and people were still afraid to admit to having the HIV virus, Eddie rallied to establish a hospice for those who were grappling with the disease. He brought the AIDS quilt to Jackson, Mississippi, and was editor of the local gay newsletter. Eddie used to take local lesbians and gays to the Southeast Lesbian and Gay Conference as well as other conferences on the East Coast. He was always finding ways to create community among lesbian and gay activists, and although he caught a lot of hell when he was trying to gather support for the house for people with HIV and AIDS, his activism within the hospice movement17 on behalf of people dying from AIDS and his work with poor and elderly people of color ultimately won him approval among both White and African Americans. In 1988, I drove my youngest sister, Linda, to Alcorn State University. My brother Dennis was already attending Tougaloo College. Unfortunately, the oldest of the three siblings, Rita, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder shortly after graduating from high school and had moved back to Oxford to live with an aunt. Finding myself with an empty nest, I contemplated leaving Mississippi to begin a brand new life. Also, I had fallen in love with Katrina, a White woman I met at an out-of-town lesbian potluck event. Katrina was working toward her PhD at one of the Atlanta universities. I was ready to return to school to complete my master’s degree in social work, so I was happy to move to the Atlanta area. I had no idea what life had in store for me. The words of Audre Lorde expressed how I felt: “The White fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us—the poet—whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.”18 I felt that I was on my own again and that the possibilities were limitless, now that my younger siblings were settled and on their own. Katrina cofounded the Lesbian and Gay Student Alliance at her university, and she and I lived and grew together for four years. Although our romantic

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relationship ended, we remain very good friends today and still work together professionally. When Katrina and I broke up, I went to therapy and dealt with the sexual abuse issues in my past. I also explored, to some extent, why it was so difficult to resolve the race-related issues that arose when I was with Katrina. Meanwhile, another White lesbian friend of mine had a party at her home to which the only people she invited were Black lesbians associated with the support group ZAMI. Shortly thereafter, I became involved with the organization, and along with Iris Rafi—one of the founders—worked to establish it as a nonprofit organization and improve its visibility nationwide and in both the African American and LGBT communities in Atlanta. During that period, ZAMI was awarded grants and formed partnerships with other organizations in the Atlanta area. Although I had been somewhat active in the predominantly White lesbian community in Atlanta while Katrina and I were partners, I had never worked with a predominantly Black lesbian organization or been immersed in a Black lesbian community. However, I quickly found my niche at ZAMI. I absorbed myself in the support groups facilitating discussions, working on the newsletter with Lisa Moore and Anjail Rashad, informally mentoring others and fund-raising. What’s more, ZAMI’s outreach to African American lesbians attending the historically Black colleges and universities that formed the Atlanta University Center19 had a tremendous impact on me. These youth groups exposed me to young Black lesbian women who were struggling to be out while simultaneously working hard to achieve their educational goals. Their efforts to be out and educated motivated me to develop the Audre Lorde Scholarship. Starting a scholarship fund requires various steps. I had to find a fiscal partner (the Fund for Southern Communities was chosen) and work with lawyers to set things up properly. Then, of course, I needed money. A wealthy White lesbian woman whom I knew challenged me to raise the first $500, with the promise that she would match it. Early fundraising efforts in 1995 took me a year and a half. By 1997, the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund was able to award two $1000 scholarships. One award went to activist and art major Wendi O’Neal of Spelman College, who cofounded the Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance, and the other award went to Akeya Works, a marketing and advertising major at Georgia State University. She attended youth groups at the Atlanta Gay Center and was active in an on-campus feminist group, the Power of Women. The scholarships celebrated the tenacity of who they were during a time when many queer youth were contemplating suicide. Audre writes: Often we give lip service to the idea of mutual support and connection between Black women because we have not yet crossed the barriers to these possibilities, nor fully explored the angers and fear that keep us from realizing the power of a real Black sisterhood.

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And to acknowledge our dreams is to sometimes acknowledge the distance between those dreams and our present situation. Acknowledged, our dreams can shape the realities of our future, if we arm them with the hard work and scrutiny of now.20 The Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund particularly honors Black lesbians who do community-building work with other Black women, thereby defying the odds and anger that often threaten to keep Black women apart. Crystal Wiley, a senior at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, was a founding member of ADORE (Affirmed Daughters of Ruth Ellis), a campus organization that supports lesbian and bisexual women of color. Simone Bell a creative writing major at Agnes Scott, mentored students who were members of ADORE. Tamara Bullock restarted and cochaired a group for LGBT people of color at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Lynnee Bonner of San Francisco State University founded So Much Soul in the late 1990s as a place where Black lesbians in California could come together weekly to hear music with themes that exclude misogyny and expanded narrow definitions of Blackness. In addition to creating community among Black lesbians, many scholarship recipients have founded organizations that create community among different LGBT networks, as well as networks outside the queer community. Alicia Skillman founded Family Reunion, a PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) group in Detroit for people of color, while she was studying physics at Oakland University. Shayna Robinson, of the University of Maryland, founded Spectrum, a student-run organization created to address issues dealing with race, class, and sexuality when she was in high school. Doreen Watson, who got an Audre Lorde Scholarship at Texas Women’s University, is cofounder and copresident of Bridges: Making Connections, an organization that works to bring about equality for all people across categories of race, gender, and sexuality. Audre Lorde warned: We cannot settle for the pretenses of connection, or for parodies of self-love. We cannot continue to evade each other on the deepest levels because we fear each other’s angers, nor continue to believe that respect means never looking directly nor with openness into another Black woman’s eyes.21

Standing Tall In Atlanta, I “rounded off” my womanhood. I started a drumming group, DrumSista, for lesbians of color in 2001 and completed my master’s degree in social work in 2002. I also formed the group Sister Outsider for older Black

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and White lesbians, in order to address how ageism, classism, sexism, and racism affect older lesbian women. We particularly wanted to be proactive around ageing issues, examine the importance of creating residential housing for older lesbians, and counter the overemphasis on youth culture in both the queer community and society in general. As older lesbians, we need to address fears of ageing as well as the homophobia found in most institutions that impact our lives as queer elders. The group did not last as long as I had hoped due, in part, to White lesbians’ reluctance to discuss the racism in queer communities; however, a listserv that I started around the same time still exists. I still read and reread Audre Lorde’s writings and take seriously her vision: The future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference. . . . Change means growth and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goals. For Black and White, old and young, lesbian and heterosexual women alike, this can mean new paths to our survival.22 In my mid-40s, I also began to seriously explore my spirituality. I attended women’s music festivals and began reading a lot of Buddhist writings, particularly texts by Pema Chodron, whose down-to-earth nature and simple teachings seem to speak directly to me. I have also stretched myself by staring my own research development company, the Adams Research Group. My business engages in organizational development, grant writing, research interviewing, antioppression group training, conflict mediation, and focus group facilitation. At a visit with the doctor, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, however, during the time I was building my business. This was around 2006, and like many women who get that scary news, I cried. Then, I got on with the business of healing. After extensive information gathering and lots of silent meditation, I made the decision to undergo a bilateral mastectomy. Several days prior to surgery, I invited about forty women to a wonderful healing circle replete with African drumming and scented candles, where we affirmed my recovery and the healing forces of life and positive energy. Thanks to the success of the feminist movement in promoting equal access to education for women, I had a physician who was a breast cancer survivor and out lesbian, a female surgeon, a female oncologist, and a female anesthesiologist. After talking to two female plastic surgeons about the pros and cons of reconstructive surgery, I decided I would not have breast reconstruction—the same decision Audre Lorde had made many years before me.23

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Fortunately for me, postsurgery tests detected no cancer. Therefore, I did not have to endure chemotherapy or radiation. I also had a very supportive partner and caregiver, Lisa, and a community of loving friends to whom I am extremely grateful. Full of gratitude and fired up by the incredible enthusiasm of many breast cancer survivor activists, I gladly accepted a nomination to serve on the LBGT National Advisory Council of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I relate very closely to Audre Lorde’s experiences of breast cancer and to what she wrote after recovering from her first mastectomy: What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?24 Today ZAMI offers scholarships to “out lesbians, gays, and bisexual and transgendered people of color nationwide who are making significant contributions to their communities. The first gay man awarded a scholarship was Charles Stephens of Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he was one of the few men taking women’s studies courses. Stephens was a founding member of the Black Rainbow, a discussion group for young Black queer men. He also served on the Board of Directors of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, a queer organization that supports the efforts of grassroots queer youth organizations. Much like their Black lesbian predecessors, Black gay men who have received Audre Lorde Scholarships have created community in turn by founding a variety of progressive organizations. Jeremiah Waters was a junior at Drexel University in Philadelphia, majoring in finance and information systems, when he got a scholarship from the fund. He cofounded the student group Foundation of Undergraduates for Sexual Equality (FUSE) and has supported himself financially ever since his minister father told him he would no longer support him if he remained an active homosexual. Michael “Shomari” Robinette, a graduate student in women’s studies at Georgia State, cofounded Black Out, to galvanize Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning students on campus. Marcus Gunn, a sophomore at Albany State University in Georgia, was given an ultimatum at age 14 by his mother when she discovered that he was gay: “Either live the way that I want you to live or leave my house.” He left and found a supportive family at Youth Pride, the only organization in Atlanta that serves all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. Gunn wants to establish safe housing for LGBTQ youth. Finally, nonprofit “guru,” feminist coalition builder, LGBTQ human rights activist, writer Craig Washington, a social work major at Georgia State University, captured the spirit of all of our scholarship recipients in his application:

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Mary Anne Adams There is not a space or level of community interaction in which I am not open about my sexual orientation. After my initial coming out process, I was intentional about liberating myself from any vestiges of shame or self-consciousness about being gay. I would not befriend anyone who could not accept and affirm that aspect of my being. I am publicly out, having appeared in numerous publications and television broadcasts as gay-identified. Being out is not a static condition but an ongoing process of evolution that entails an uncovering, an unpacking, a continual shedding to reach my divine humanity and recognize the humanity of others.25

By broadening our base, I foster the hope that the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund will eventually find a home for its archives (the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta has expressed a strong interest), become its own foundation with a board comprised of the people who look like its donors, and offer summer leadership institutes for recipients, taught by community activists and scholars, with workshops on grant writing and other capacity-building topics. As I continue standing tall and living out, loud and proud, the words of the activist poet who inspired me will forever remain in my heart: “I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.”26

Notes 1. Lorde, A., 1984, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Freedom, CA: Crossing), 41–42. 2. Zami is a Carriacou word meaning “women who work together as friends and lovers”; Audre Lorde’s 1982 biomythography is titled Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing). 3. See http://www.zami.org. 4. Lorde 1984, 36. 5. Freelance writer Nicole Humphrey writes: “Some infants are born with a hood, caul, or veil over their face. This thin, filmy membrane is actually the remnants of the amniotic sac, and typically covers the newborn immediately after birth. Being born with a caul is an extremely rare situation, probably occurring in fewer than one in 1,000 births. In addition to being a birth rarity, it is present only in premature babies. However, there are many beliefs about what it means, and why a baby would be born with a caul. In medieval times it was considered good luck to be born with a caul. . . . In the psychic world, it is more often regarded as a ‘veil.’ A baby born with a veil is believed to be destined for great things and having been born with a veil is a sign of psychic abilities, good luck or a special destiny.” Retrieved January 7, 2008 at http://www.associatedcontent. com/article/97897/why_are_some_babies_born_with_a_caul?

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6. Lorde 1984, 174. 7. Ibid., 43. 8. On October 1, 1962, James Meredith became the first Black student to enroll successfully at the University of Mississippi after being barred from entering on September 20, 1962. His enrollment, opposed by Governor Ross Barnett, sparked riots on the Oxford campus, which required federal troops and U.S. Marshals, who were sent by President John F. Kennedy. The riots led to a violent clash leaving two people dead, 48 soldiers injured, and 30 U.S. Marshals with gun wounds. Meredith graduated with a degree in history and ultimately received his law degree from Columbia University in 1968. Retrieved on January 10, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James-Meredith. 9. Lorde 1984, 174–75. 10. Ibid., 41. 11. See Hoffman, A., 2007, An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press). 12. Jackson State University is a public, historically Black university. 13. Tougaloo College is a private, historically Black college. 14. By the early 1980s the music festival Sisterfire, sponsored by Roadwork in Washington, D.C., began to grow. The 1982 concert was “a cross cultural, multi-racial festival which drew over 3,000 people from Washington and across the nation” according to Roadwork organizers. Organizers worked hard to provide access to the physically challenged, and the festival was open to male attendance, unlike other annual women’s music festivals. However, the festival only scheduled women musicians. Roadwork was formed to coordinate the various women’s festivals across the country. Retrieved from the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press’s History of Women’s Media at http://www.wofp.org/womensmediach7.html on January 10, 2008. See also http://roadworkarchives.com. 15. Lorde 1984, 10. 16. Ibid., 120–21. 17. The hospice movement supports specialized care for the dying and improving the process by focusing on the individual needs of patients. Patients deserve respect and dignity as well as choices regarding decisions that affect their destiny. See www.nhpco.org for additional information on the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. 18. Lorde 1984, 38. 19. The four institutions that form the Atlanta University Center are Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark-Atlanta University, and Morris Brown College. 20. Lorde 1984, 153. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., 123. 23. Lorde, A. 1980. The Cancer Journals (San Francisco: Aunt Lute). 24. Ibid., 25. 25. Quote taken from http://www.zami.org/scholars2006.htm. 26. Lorde 1984, 147.

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Chapter 6

Feminist Compassion A Gay Man Loving Black Women

Todd C. Shaw

How can I be gay and love Black women as a man in a society that defines manhood by violence against women? African American women gave me the answer to that question. Black feminism, or what I synonymously refer to as “womanism,”1 helped me to see how I could cease being a problem and become a part of the solution. Getting involved on behalf of my sisters, I grew to see how feminism is linked to any person’s humanity, man or woman. As I found my voice and learned to speak out about the violent abuse of Black women, I also found myself and learned to come out as a Black, same-gender-loving man, both of which are ongoing processes. As a college professor I teach a course on African American political thought that includes sections on African American feminist and womanist thought. I want students to grapple with how Black feminism informs and usefully challenges all schools of Black political thought. I also research African American ideology and how certain factors shape what African Americans consider a “community interest.” Socioeconomic class is one factor that shapes community interest for African Americans; according to my research, gender is another.2 But, for all my intellectual interests and training, it was the compassion of Black women who embodied womanist principles—feminism as lived in our everyday lives—that taught me the most about community interests and how those interests affect my life. When I turned 25 years old, I remember seriously struggling with whether I was bisexual or gay. My dating experiences, with two African American women in particular, often made me think about a poem by Haki Madhubuti3 that includes the following lines:

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Todd C. Shaw my brothers I will not tell you who to love or not love i will only say to you that black women have not been loved enough. . . . no my brothers I will not tell you who to love or not love but i will make you aware of our self-hating and hurting ways. make you aware of whose bellies you dropped from. i will glue your ears to those images you reflect which are not being loved.

That poem made me ask, “If I am a same-gender-loving man, what relationship am I going to have with Black women? How can I love Black women as a Black gay man? Am I disappointing Black women by coming out as gay? Is my sexual preference another way of not being there for Black women and not fulfilling a deep need to love them?” Those are the questions and fears that raced through my mind for quite a while. I had been dating a Black feminist, but at one point I started to pull away as I grappled with my sexuality. When that happened, she confronted me about my lack of openness with her. Then she wrapped her arms around me and replied, “You are loved as you are.” She held me in her arms and lovingly told me, “Your truth is your truth; I accept it and love you; I care for you, everything is going to be all right.” This nurturing gesture by a Black woman had a profound impact on me. Amid the tears I found a new kind of compassion that was echoed by the many other sisters I came to confide in over the years, including my beloved mother. Eventually I came to identify that compassion with feminism.

Afrocentric and Womanist I was born in 1965, so I grew up during a period of political and cultural upheaval. The women in my life were my primary role models for being human. First and foremost were women like my mother and grandmother, who do not necessarily identify with the term feminist but are independent souls of great

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breadth and spiritual wisdom. My father played a primary role in teaching me how to be truly Christ-inspired and, thus, fully compassionate. His spiritual growth set an example for my own evolution later. He frequently told my brothers and me that he loved us, and his compassion as a father exemplified the unconditional love of the “Heavenly Father, Mother, God” that I believe exists today. In many ways, he defied what the world (particularly many Black preachers) has taught Black fathers regarding the need to be “hard” in order to prevent their sons from being “soft.” My womanism was also shaped by attending Howard, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C. There I came into contact with Black women who did not necessarily label themselves “feminist” but who lived a feminist ethic in their leadership and activism. Their actions stated that women are equal to men and do not have to limit themselves to what a patriarchal society considers their circumscribed capabilities and possibilities. One night in the dorm, during my sophomore year at Howard, I heard a series of very loud thuds as if a large object—possibly someone’s body—was being hurled against the wall next door. Eventually I walked over there and knocked to ask if something was wrong, but there was no answer. In fact, the room fell silent. As soon as I turned to walk away, the door of the room flew open and a Black woman frantically sprinted down the hall. Then I saw a Black man, whom I presumed to be the woman’s boyfriend, emerge from the doorway. As if to justify his apparent assault against her, the man grinned at me and said, “You know how it is, brother? This is just one of those situations.” Unfortunately, as a young man I believed that confronting racism against the Black community was the paramount issue—far more important than challenging sexism within the Black community. Yet such instances of domestic violence, especially on the part of Black men against Black women, ignited my awareness. The pervasive violence against women that was evident within the Black community corroded possibilities of full freedom for all of us. Eventually, such experiences led me to this truth: if the racist oppression of Black people is wrong (as I was taught in many Howard classes), then the sexist oppression of Black women, and of women in general, is equally wrong. At Howard I also served as a campaign manager for two Black women students who were running for president and vice-president of the student body. To our knowledge, there had never been two women simultaneously elected president and vice-president, so their campaign slogan was Setting a Precedent. The campaign, fueled by the idea that Black women ought to lead and have a right to lead, galvanized me into paying close attention to how Black women described their life struggles and served as a catalyst for my budding womanist consciousness. In addition, I witnessed how sexism worked among Black men and women on Howard’s campus. At one point I wrote an editorial in the student newspaper rallying against what our campus called “Phat Booty” contests,

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where Black women were explicitly made sexual objects on display. I heard many details of these contests: each Black woman was rated as to who had the biggest, shapeliest butt compared to all the other Black women competing. I considered the contests belittling to the human dignity of my sisters, and I never forgot how Black women could be disrespected by Black men who claimed to be educated. When I left Howard, I went to graduate school at the University of Michigan and read authors who were self-identified Black feminists. In graduate school, as both a scholar and an activist, I learned the reality of linked oppressions, or what African American feminist Patricia Hill Collins calls “the matrix of domination” that affects us all.4 Angela Davis’s account of how rape was used to break Black women during slavery5 and bell hooks’s writings about Black masculinity, showing how African Americans need to rethink masculinity from a feminist perspective,6 helped me make additional connections between racism and sexism. At the time, in the late 1980s, there were many debates among Black students about how to protect, defend, and promote the interests of the African American student body. There were clashes among organizations about the importance of race versus gender and how to negotiate which activist strategies best supported our community. Heightening this debate, a series of rapes occurred that involved Black male students attacking Black women. One particular argument turned on whether Black students could trust and rely on White, racist police—who already unfairly targeted, brutalized, and harassed Black men—to bring the rapists to justice. On the one hand, some students believed that involving the police would increase the chances of unjust racial profiling in our community. Therefore, it was argued that we should handle these crimes “internally” by developing a mechanism within our community that would educate Black men and others about sexual violence. On the other hand, a number of Black women felt that refusing to publicly report the rape of Black women by Black men in order to protect Black men from unjust racial profiling was another sexist strategy that protected Black men at the expense of Black women. These women felt that the crisis was so great that, despite possible repercussions, the plight of Black women needed to be broadcasted as widely and loudly as possible. The debate was a dilemma for some. However, I agreed with the group that felt Black women should not have to bear the burden for crimes committed by Black men and not literally have their bodies sacrificed whenever those community dynamics occurred. After a series of conversations with Black men on campus, I saw that there were Black men who were struggling with their sexism but who also understood that rape is a fundamental human injustice. We did not want to be seen as straddling the fence on the issue, so we decided to demonstrate our

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public support for the sisters who felt men who victimized women must be held publicly accountable for their actions. I sent out a call on a University of Michigan African American student electronic listserv, asking men to sign a letter that I wrote. It stated, in essence, that although we as Black men are struggling with our own sexism, we want to make clear that we are “absolutely against sexual assault and domestic violence” and stand strongly in support of our Black sisters. Any Black man could sign the statement, because it represented a pledge for all of us to take a fundamentally different path regarding Black women from that point onward. Forty-three brothers at the University of Michigan came forward and signed their names to that statement, and it was printed on the back of an antirape pamphlet published by Sistahs Organizin’ in Unity for Real ChangE (SOURCE) in late 1992. I also wrote an editorial entitled “A Brother’s Perspective on Sexual Assault” for the Black Student Monthly newsletter.7 It said, in part, I am a brother who is gravely concerned about issues of sexual assault and sexism in general and within the black community. . . . I do not speak for black women! For if we take Patricia Hill Collins’s book called Black Feminism to heart: black women can only speak from and for the standpoint of black women’s experiences. Yet, I do speak because I feel as black men we are obliged to understand in what ways we are perversely “privileged” due to sexism and can become conscious or unconscious perpetuators of our sisters pain and oppression. I speak mainly to my brothers not because we are the only ones who need to hear this message—far from it! But, to paraphrase Toni Morrison, it is far past time that all of we brothers speak those things which we usually consider unspeakable. Upon what are we silent or how do dominant, backward assertions demand the silence of more progressive perspectives? First of all, as can be tragically attested from the opinions of brothers (and sisters) on several recent incidents of rape and sexual assault of black men against black women on campus as well as the drama of the [Anita] Hill and [Clarence] Thomas controversy [at the Supreme Court] more than a year ago, fragile or incoherent feelings of racial consciousness and blind “skin-color nationalism” (as I call it) has some of us to backwardly perceive who is the villain and who is the victim or at worst to blame the victim. We perpetually ask our sisters to make false and cruel choices of either stand in racial solidarity with the black men who rape, abuse, and harass them for the “good of the race” or “to betray us” by speaking out in whatever ways they can to stop the victimization. This is evident from the campus activism of a black women’s self-empowerment group called

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Todd C. Shaw SOURCE, and the criticism as well as the praise that group has received. Brothers, we ignore the fact that from the standpoint of black women the evil of racism can be joined by a twin evil called sexism. We ignore the fact, as bell hooks asserts, that black women can still love black men and be vehemently against sexism. In sum, this ignorance means that some of us lack the critical perspective necessary to see that as powerless and victimized as we black men are in this society—which I would be among the first to admit—we still have enough power relative to black women to inflict tremendous pain and hardship either with our fists, our words, or our neglect. Because we still dominate most podiums, pulpits, city halls, and board rooms in our communities usually to the exclusion or subordination of black women, we in no way can solely blame white men for imposing their sexist values on us. Let us face it, brothers, we have internalized the worst of these notions to the detriment of our sisters, ourselves, and our community! Furthermore . . . the above warped rationale of “racism over sexism” is undergirded by a lopsided legacy of principles about black masculinity and manhood which place at their center the notion of domination and the overwhelming urge to control and define women. There is an extremely thought-provoking article bell hooks wrote in the book Black Looks entitled “Reconstructing Black Masculinity.” I consider it a must-read for brothers willing to understand. In it she chronicles how from slavery until the present our (literal) forefathers attempted to assume the role of the dominant, breadwinning patriarch so as to emulate the “men-as-sole-providers-myth” that white men forced white women to labor under. However, due to differing notions of gender roles and tensions in the availability of meager wage labor to black women versus black men, there has always been a tension in black men assuming this role. While black men—from E. Franklin Frazier to Robert Staples—were accusing racism for not allowing them to assume their rightful headship in the family hierarchy, black women were accused of being domineering and destructive “matriarchs.” One way in which all too many black men have attempted to brutally “reassert” control, as hooks points out, is through the use of the penis . . . as a weapon . . . so Black men often equate sexual conquest or “phallocentricism” as black male power and as a core if not the core characteristic of black manhood. From the antics of Richard Pryor, to 2 Live Crew, to “fraternity step show” displays I have witnessed . . . how such misogyny seriously not only undermines the ability of us brothers to get beyond the urge

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to dominate our sisters, but it indeed imprisons us in a cell truly constructed by white men’s delusions of the ideal man. What good is it for us to talk about “black male responsibility” and “reshaping black manhood” at conferences and meetings if our final product is simply a sick carbon-copy of “Father Knows Best” or of that almost forgotten idiot “Andrew Dice Clay”? For the sake of our sisters and ourselves, must not we struggle with what we mean by “Afrocentrism,” “Black masculinity,” and “the black family,” beyond using the [penis] as the definitive yardstick—which usually includes only “real, straight black men.” . . . . The greatest silence—whether in barbershops, bars, living rooms, fraternity meetings, support groups, and etc—is that we African American men (as one of my fellow brothers so poignantly asserted) “are in a state of perpetual denial.” We deny our part in our sister’s oppression and thus deny ourselves of being fully progressive and liberated black men who are free of white men’s hang-ups and thus able to grow with and work alongside our sisters. For all the ire it might generate, this commentary is not about me self-righteously castigating brothers upon the altar of public opinion—I am not “casting any stones” that I don’t think could also be thrown at me in some way. As my political awareness of feminism and womanism, in particular, broadened and my understanding of gender oppression deepened, the presumption that everything that is “feminine” is inferior to all things “masculine” reinforced my belief that the empowerment of women, the resistance to sexism, and the resistance to heterosexism are undeniably intertwined. I was not always aware of the various changes taking place in my political consciousness, but my developing feminist outlook led to a conscious acceptance that I was also a Black same-gender-loving man.

Black, Gay, and Christian I can accept that Black men can be both victimized and victimizers.8 Black men can be oppressed by race and gender in very particular ways, but they can also turn their anger over that upon Black women. My awareness of that dynamic broadened even further when I began to identify—to myself and to others—as a gay man. I have heard from countless Black gay brothers that they knew they were gay at a very young age. However, for me, it was more of an “epiphany” that occurred in my mid-20s during graduate school. I had been struggling with

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not being romantically and physically attracted to one particularly beautiful sister who was attracted to me. I remember the question echoing in my head, “Well, maybe you are gay?” Suddenly, a light came on in my head, and I fully recognized just how attracted I was to other men, especially Black men. Today, I laugh about it, but I can still remember “testing myself” and almost literally falling in love with a very handsome Black male model in Essence magazine! Eventually, I confided my torment to my best friend, a very compassionate feminist heterosexual male who affirmed that I was still very much his brother and friend. His compassion, also influenced by his enduring respect for women, empowered me to explore deeply my feelings for my Black women friends, many of them feminists. As a gay man, I experience gender oppression due to stereotypes about what is masculine and feminine. Similar sexist beliefs also underlie and are related to heterosexism—the systemic ways sexually diverse people are oppressed. Therefore, I identify with womanists and the struggles of Black feminists. However, I also have learned from my experiences in the gay male community that simply being a gay male does not make one a feminist. Masculine power still resides at the center of the dominant power structure. It is not necessarily easier for gay men to identify with the plight and experiences of women simply because they are discriminated against as a sexual minority. A sexist, masculinist ethic can still be at the center of a Black gay man’s life. For us, the search for what it means to be a man is just as vital a struggle as the struggle over what it means to be gay. Some gay men can be misogynist or woman hating, even as they behave in ways not traditionally considered masculine (e.g., dressing in drag, making certain expressive gestures). They may feel the need to overcompensate for a loss in masculine power by proving they are still “real men”; hence the suppression of so-called effeminate men or transgendered persons even within the LGBT community. I had to be open to womanist principles and accept them as a guide for living. The educational process is ongoing, and I can humbly attest to that! In addition to identifying as a womanist, I now claim my Afrocentric and Christian identities as well. I have discovered connections beyond the traditional boundaries that divide Afrocentrism/Black consciousness, Christianity, women’s equality, and homosexuality. The “conservative” position on those labels is often too simple and rarely liberating. Key to my thinking on Christian identity has been the nurturing of two Black women ministers and pastors within the Unity Fellowship Church. The Unity Fellowship Church movement is a predominantly Black-led Christian church and social justice ministry with a predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (but inclusive) membership. It was founded by Bishop Carl Bean in 1982 with the motto, God Is Love, and Love Is for Everyone. Prayers in the Unity Fellowship movement begin with “Mother/Father God,” emphasiz-

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ing that while we may need the notion of a heavenly parent, that parent can be genderless: God can be mother or father or even mother and father. The Unity Fellowship emphasizes that women are vital to the ministry of Jesus and were vital from the earliest days of the Christian church. The movement also teaches that Jesus never spoke about (or against) homosexuality and that the Christian Bible is being misread regarding homosexuality, just as it has been misread regarding the role of women in the church and the enslavement of African people.9 Finally, the Unity Fellowship preaches that African Americans need not be ashamed of their cultural heritage and that we should celebrate our African ancestry. Thanks to my exposure to womanists and other proud LGBT members of the Unity Fellowship Church, my Black consciousness, my feminist consciousness, my consciousness as a gay man, and my Christian spiritual upbringing merged and were strengthened. One Black lesbian sister in Detroit actually mentored the Afrocentric, Christian, womanist, and same-gender-loving parts of me all at the same time! Naturally I had questions about whether one strand conflicted with another, but she exemplified in her own life how all of those political outlooks and identities were not in contradiction and could peacefully coexist. I have been influenced by a multitude of people, regardless of their racial identities, spiritual viewpoints, genders, or sexual orientations. But the compassionate, feminist former girlfriend and the womanist sisterhood I encountered during my years of higher education comprised a large portion of the village that raised this man from a child. Womanists inspired me not only to come out but to speak out about violence against Black women, in ways that continue the legacy of Audre Lorde.

Audre Lorde’s Legacy The late poet, essayist, and educator Audre Lorde was one of the feminist movement’s strongest voices: “Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself—a Black woman warrior poet doing my work—come to ask you, are you doing yours?”10 Her writing, especially “The Uses of the Erotic,”11 has been and still remains a powerful influence on my understanding of sexuality, honor, and self-respect. Lorde calls on all of us to love the fullness of ourselves and not allow society to objectify whom we love or sexualize us in ways that are oppressive. The notion that the erotic part of our humanity could be spiritual, affirming, and a powerful life force to be embraced—rather than something to be feared and isolated from the rest of our lives—was a revolutionary idea to me! Understanding the erotic from this perspective allows us to become whole, helps our souls rejoice in the sexual realm, and provides the bridge that can help us love ourselves and each other

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more. Although Lorde is associated primarily with Black lesbian and gay feminist thought, I believe her position is representative of a much broader humanistic philosophy and of healthy sexuality in general. I thought of Audre Lorde one day when I was previewing a poignant documentary on the rape of Black women, by Philadelphia-based independent filmmaker Aishah Simmons. The film, entitled NO! discusses the “unspoken” truths about the rape of Black women by Black men with the greatest candor and profound wisdom I have ever witnessed.12 My mouth dropped open as I recognized one of the women who was telling her story in the film. I remembered that woman from graduate school. I did not realize she had been one of the rape victims on the Michigan campus whose experience had led to the founding of SOURCE (Sistahs Organizing Unity for Real Change). As she described her work with this organization in the documentary, I sat stunned. After the screening I wrote to Aishah and donated money to fund the completion of the film. I had learned earlier, during my college years, not to cosign on the African American community’s silence surrounding the issue. Watching that antirape documentary reminded me that one way Black men can demonstrate their love for Black women is to speak out about the violence they endure at our hands. I felt I had to speak out about the contemporary history of rape that I have witnessed as a Black man during my lifetime.

Passionate Compassion Sadly, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia still oppress countless women and men; for any of us to speak out against these ills can mean adverse consequences—from public defamation to lost support from family and friends. While I too have fears, I have learned that truth can be stronger than fear. The truth, to me, is that to the degree each of us, as individuals, can find the will to speak out and come out against these linked oppressions, collectively we will all be free, and free indeed! For me, the compassion of feminism has been integral to learning this truth. I find it worth repeating that Black men of all inclinations—gay, bisexual, straight, or trans—can demonstrate their love for Black women by speaking out about the violence they endure at our hands, and stopping it. This use of passion or, as Audre Lorde called it, “the erotic” or “life force,” is a deeper expression of love that goes beyond the romantic and encompasses all humanity. As Lorde states: The distortion of relationship which says “I disagree with you, so I must destroy you,” leaves us as Black people with basically uncreative victories, defeated in any common struggle. This jugular vein

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psychology is based on the fallacy that your assertion or affirmation of self is an attack upon myself—or that my defining myself will somehow prevent or retard your self-definition. . . . The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects—born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force. . . . The aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible. Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision—a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered.13 There is a compassionate side of feminism that is rarely discussed in the mass media. My personal experience of this compassion intensified my commitment to it and passion for it and enabled me to translate those feelings into action.

Notes 1. I specifically want to thank Bishop Tonya M. Rawls of Unity Fellowship Church (Charlotte), for her loving spiritual counsel and preaching about womanism; and Dr. Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, for being among the many wonderful sisters who have mentored and supported me. I use the terms womanism and Black feminism interchangeably because I am sympathetic to both the argument that their differences are semantic and the view that womanism represents an indigenous, Black women’s worldview for whole community empowerment, distinct from White feminism. I use the term same-genderloving interchangeably with gay out of respect for its contribution to the self-definition struggle of African Americans. For the origins of the term womanist, see White, A., 2008, “Historical and Contemporary Usage of the Terms ‘Feminist’ and ‘Womanist.’ ” In her Ain’t I a Feminist? (Albany: State University of New York Press), 211–12. 2. Shaw, T. forthcoming, Now Is the Time! Detroit Black Politics and Grassroots Activism (Duke University Press). 3. Madhubuti., H., 1996, “My Brothers,” in his Groundwork: New and Selected Poems from 1966–1996 (Chicago: Third World), 221. 4. Collins, P. H., 1991. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge), 222. 5. Davis, A., 1985, Violence against Black Women and the Ongoing Challenge to Racism (New York: Kitchen Table), 8. 6. hooks, b., 1992, “Reconstructing Black Masculinity,” in her Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End), 87–113. 7. Shaw, T., 1992, “A Brother’s Perspective on Sexual Assault,” The Black Student Monthly: University of Michigan 5(2): 5–6. 8. hooks, b., 1984, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” in her Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End), 72.

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9. See http://www.unityfellowshipchurch.org/. See also Boswell, J., 1980, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago/London: University of Chicago); Helminiak, D. A., 1994, What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality (San Francisco: Alamo Square); McNeill, J., 1988, Taking a Chance on God (Boston: Beacon). 10. Lorde, A., 1984, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” in her Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, CA: Crossing), 40–44. 11. Lorde, A., 1984, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” in her Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, CA: Crossing), 53–59. 12. See http://www.notherapedocumentary.org for additional information about the documentary. 13. Lorde 1984, 51, 55.

Chapter 7

Gay, Gray, and a Place to Stay Living It Up and Out in an RV Park

Aaronette M. White and Vera C. Martin

Our concept of ‘home’ includes complex expectations, memories, and experiences.1 Just ask African American feminist lesbian Vera Martin, born in 1923, who packed her bags and moved to a predominantly white, lesbian-oriented RV park in Arizona at the age of 72. Aging lesbians are more likely to lack support from friends and family if they are open about their sexuality. They tend to live in isolation with their partners and to have fewer children, if any. If and when they or their partners die or fall ill, they become especially vulnerable, given the small size of their support circles.2 Many gays and lesbians approaching retirement have been obliged to find housing in straight institutions, where the homophobia of other residents pressures them to go back into the closet.3 Finding lesbian-friendly retirement facilities is difficult, yet the need for community, a sense of home, and safety increases as women grow older. As the U.S. population ages, more lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people will need high-quality, affordable housing and services designed to meet their specific needs. LGBT seniors, like anyone else, want open-minded neighbors who respect their right to age with dignity, security, and acceptance. Unfortunately, LGBT seniors face increased risks as a result of discrimination based on sexual preference and orientation, in addition to physical and emotional vulnerabilities associated with aging. Niche marketing has always been a feature of retirement communities, and for decades, Jewish, Catholic, Lithuanian, Polish, and Scottish retirees have gathered in facilities specifically targeting those populations.4 In the early 1990s Zoe Swanagon and Loverne King, a lesbian couple, founded an organization known as “RVing Women.”5 This group, the members of which were not all 113

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lesbian, began to advocate for its own recreational vehicle (RV) park. Many were already retired or semiretired. The idea was to establish a home base that would be affordable and safe for women in general, and lesbians in particular, as they grew older. Swanagon and King, who had other successful businesses, were able to use some of their own money, as well as advance sales of individual lots under a condominium arrangement, to buy land for an RV park with 226 lots. Their initial marketing efforts focused mainly on the existing membership of RVing Women. No bank loans were involved, although a few women from outside RVing Women made loans. Demand exceeded supply so quickly that in 1995 Swanagon opened a second park with 225 lots, across the street from the first one. Each park included a swimming pool, billiard room, ballroom, laundromat, main office, and library. Although both parks initially were intended for RVs, not for tied-down mobile homes, most lots are now occupied by “park models,” a type of mobile home that fits within a restricted square footage to comply with RV park zoning rules. Most of the lots are owned by couples and are nearly full from December through March. Some winter residents rent their lots to others during Arizona’s hot summer months. Most of the women are White, so women of color are almost as scarce as men in these communities. Few are under the age of fifty. The residents’ geographic origins are diverse, including clustered contingents from the East and West coasts. Their occupational backgrounds include nursing, teaching, administrative assistants, and military officers. As one woman noted, “Graduate degrees are not uncommon in areas such as social work, library science, and other women-dominated fields.”6 Publicity is not welcomed, because the residents’ desire for peace, safety, and seclusion is more important to them than political activism. When I (Aaronette) visited Superstition Mountain Resort in November 2003, I was impressed by the quiet surroundings, the feeling of safety among women, and the way all the streets were named after women. Walking by streets named Martina Navratilova, Susan B. Anthony, Barbara Jordan, Anne Frank, Gloria Steinem, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, and Katharine Hepburn made me feel proud to be a woman. Two White women riding their bikes wore tee-shirts that read, “Graduate of the Thelma and Louise Finishing School.” Enjoying this wry, feminist humor, I wondered how Vera decided to move and stay here. Vera’s story illustrates the various needs and experiences of a Black woman who simultaneously identifies with the terms old, Black, feminist, and lesbian as she fights ageism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Feminism Is a Survival Tool “When I say I’m a feminist,” explains Vera Martin, “it means that at a very young age I had to develop an attitude that would help me survive. So feminism

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to me, is a survival tool. I was told so often during my formative years that I was such a rebel, that after a while I began to believe it.”7 Vera admits she embraced the word feminist when she came out in the 1970s. Although her commitment to it never led her to demonstrate with well-known feminist figures, feminism really had an impact on her when she decided to live her lesbian life openly. As an out, Black lesbian woman in her early fifties, Vera tried to support younger women in the “second wave” of the movement. She was often the oldest woman in the organizations she belonged to. Her message to young feminists who challenged traditional notions of womanhood then is the same message she shares with feminist women today: “I’m still here, so you can do it, too!” Vera shares her personal experiences to show that engaging in what people consider unacceptable behavior for a woman does not mean it’s the end of the world or of one’s life. More likely, your life is just beginning to unfold. Vera: Most of my life I have embraced the notion that I have to be responsible for me. I cannot depend on anybody because there is nobody to depend on. I had no problems, however, admitting that if being responsible for me makes me this thing that you’re calling a “feminist,” then that’s what I am, one hundred percent! As an active union member, I have been very supportive of young working women and encouraged them not to depend on anyone to support them. Much of the feminist literature of today was not around, and I found how to be a troublemaker without it! Vera thought the RV resort was one of the most unique places she had ever heard of—two parks right across the street from each other where only lesbians lived. Her two closest friends had moved to the first park, so she promptly bought a lot in the second one. An extremely independent woman, she was not afraid to move from California to Arizona and was confident that she could make additional friends. Vera: There are loads of activities here: golfing, table games, and poker night. One can stay busy every day and night if one chooses. There is a clubhouse for dances and concerts by lesbian entertainers. We have a paid activity director, and if a lesbian group or entertainer has a concert in Phoenix or Tucson, our activity director attempts to book them at the park’s clubhouse. We have big festivities for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have something like the Olympics called the “Cactus Classics” where neighborhoods within the park compete. We eat together for special occasions, host craft sales, sponsor shoe sales, and even host a pet parade for residents to show off their pets.

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Vera described holiday pageants where residents sing, perform skits, instruments, and dress in formal attire. During the Christmas season, park neighborhood adopts a local family. The parks raise money for the animal shelter and engage in other charitable activities. Vera explained the park maintains a lesbian community without discriminating against or heterosexual women:

play each local how men

Vera: If somebody comes in to look at a place, any one of us who encounters that person tells them this is a lesbian park. We don’t say they can’t live or buy here, we just tell them it is a lesbian park. The average heterosexual couple doesn’t come here, and that takes care of it. We have a heterosexual maintenance man who lives in the park. All of our sons, brothers, and fathers come to visit us and can stay for two to three weeks at a time and have access to the facilities. It’s an unwritten agreement that if you are going to sell your place, you will advertise in lesbian presses, the RVW newsletter, and on our website, and try to sell it within the community. Despite this unwritten rule and the fact that women who live in these communities may share a common sexual identity, they vary as to race, class, religion, and ethnicity. A person’s sexual identity is just one aspect of the multifaceted identities that people claim as a result of their sociocultural experiences. Those other identities and experiences also shape the meanings one attaches to living space. Thus, living spaces can have multiple layers of meaning for the individuals who create and inhabit them. African American feminist bell hooks, examining the role of the home in African American culture, describes the idea of “homeplace”: a physical space in which Black women have been empowered to create and control, where they and their families are free from the domination and oppression of a racist society.8 Thus, she argues, the construction of a homeplace is a radically political act, because in creating a place in which one is a subject, one resists an oppressive culture’s attempts at objectification.9 Feminist scholars in the field of human geography contend that the meanings of places (including what is considered “home”) “constantly change, are formed and reformed by a shifting matrix of social, political, and economic forces.”10 As such, multiple influences, experiences, and identities shape how residents experience lesbian housing communities. Because specific forms of oppression manifest themselves differently, yet interconnect in certain ways, “home” can represent a radical space for a Black lesbian who refuses to be silenced and rendered invisible in the face of a racist, ageist, sexist, and homophobic culture. To understand how Vera came to describe this RV park as “home,” we need

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to understand her background and the experiences that shape her multiple identities and sense of place, described in her own voice.

A House Is Not a Home Vera I was born in Natchez, Mississippi. When I was a month old, I was taken to live in Louisiana with guardians. I had guardians most of my life, and then I spent time with my biological mother from 1939 until March 1942. My mother didn’t know either of her parents, and she and I were raised by the same guardians, two people who were totally unrelated to either one of us. I never got a chance to know my biological father, and my biological mother was a total stranger to me until I went to live with her when I was 16 years old I was the only child she had. I believe she hated children and never loved anybody in her entire life. I stayed with her until I was 18. I got married immediately after graduating from high school, to get away from her. My husband and I were very different. I loved being the homemaker and hearing people brag about my cooking, but I hated the sexual part of the relationship. I developed a hatred for night time. I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing, and I certainly didn’t think he knew what he was doing. I thought to myself, “This is not fun.” Then my daughter was born, 11 months later. Finally I became adamant about not wanting to have sex with him. He had numerous affairs, and eventually I left him and became the single mother of a 13-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. That was during the early 1950s. I remember being frightened because I was an entry-level employee, a data processor, and didn’t make a lot of money. I had only 18 cents in my pocket and was two days from payday, but I survived and took care of my children. Five years later I married again, but this marriage was an “arrangement.” My husband was a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute and was a musician as well as an upholsterer. He had been married three times: one marriage lasted a year, one lasted six months, and the third lasted a year. I was totally convinced, after dating him for a year, that he was a homosexual, but when I tried to make him comfortable enough to admit he was homosexual, he still would not. I did not care about his homosexuality. However, it was important to me that we respect each other and that we create a nuclear family that would be accepted by the larger society. My son adored him, and my daughter was already married by then and had her own home. When I was working at the welfare office, during my early days as an entry-level worker, I had met a Black man who was a union person, and right

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away I joined the union and became an activist. That was during the McCarthy era; it was a very dismal time in this country. Every job I took, I maintained my union membership, and it always presented problems because it meant that you were not embracing the status quo and that you were not totally under their control. I was viewed as a threat because of my strong union advocacy. Still, I became very active in the community. I was a member of the NAACP, a union organizer, a fair housing advocate, a public education advocate, and an involved parent within the school system. Then, in 1973 my second husband had a massive stroke and died. My son was in his second year of college, doing well, and was going to make it in life. I told myself it was time for me to make a break from men.

Coming Out Aaronette Vera writes feminist articles and gives speeches defending lesbians like herself who came to grips with their sexual difference later in life. Some lesbians who refer to themselves as “lifetime lesbians”—women who have never been married to men and those who brag about never having been sexually penetrated by a man—can resent lesbians like Vera, who have been married, had children with men, then decided to join the lesbian community later in life. Some lifetime lesbians feel they have made sacrifices their entire lives, while lesbians who come out of the closet much later reap the benefits of both lifestyles—straight and gay—during different periods of their lives. Sometimes that difference creates dissension within lesbian communities. Vera argues that both types of lesbians manage to find the strength to pursue a lesbian lifestyle in spite of the odds. Lesbians who come out after being married and establishing families with men risk losing custody of their children, and even the love of their children. Vera is currently estranged from her adult daughter, but she is very close to her adult son. She emphasizes that both types of lesbians should be honored, because all lesbians take some kind of risk to be who they are. Vera I always knew there was something wrong with me trying to do this “marriage thing,” and the sexual aspect had been a major chore for me. Even though I was more relaxed with the second marriage, because I was totally in control of when we would have sex, I realized that I didn’t need to marry again. I gath-

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ered all the material I could find on the gay community, then started attending the Metropolitan Community Church founded by Troy Perry, the father of gay churches.11 Perry was gay and originally from Florida. He founded this church so that gay people would have some place to go where somebody wasn’t going to preach at them for two hours about how inferior and sinful they were. This was during the early 1970s, so Troy Perry was a regular speaker at my church. Even though I wasn’t really a churchgoer, I found the people very warm, and by going to church I started getting invitations for dinner and met other lesbians. I even went through the trouble of getting baptized! Coming out as a lesbian in this society is a lifetime project, because you’re always coming out somewhere. When I decided to take a 180-degree turn in my life, I announced to my family and friends that I had paid my dues. I told them in no uncertain terms that I had earned the right to do whatever I wanted with what was left of my life, even if it included opening up a “house of ill repute”! By 1975 I was head over heels in a relationship with an African American lesbian woman. We were together for eight and a half years. However, the relationship ended because I couldn’t embrace all the rules and regulations she had. My lesbian partner was what they called a “foot-stomping-butch,” and I could not embrace that kind of behavior from a woman.12 At one point, being with her felt worse than being with a man! To her, I had a certain place as her partner. In her mind that meant there were things that I could do and things that I definitely could not do. The larger society advocates different gender roles for couples, but I believed that since we were of the same gender, we both should be gentle and kind. However, I ended up picking a lesbian who really thought she was a man, and she behaved like all the bad men she knew. She became very abusive and made my life a living hell. As lesbians, we learn attitudes and behaviors about intimate relationships from our heterosexual families and bring that baggage with us to our same-sex relationships, regardless of our sexual orientation.13 After that experience with a lesbian partner, I concluded that I did not want to go through that kind of pain on that level again. I was very active and well-known in the lesbian community, so I decided to have good friends who could go to the theater with me or read a book and discuss it with me, but not live with me. I decided that I didn’t want to live with anybody again: been there, done that! Around that time in 1985, I also decided to retire. Retirement has meant having a lot of perks, but mainly total freedom. I don’t have to be accountable to anyone. I can schedule my day as I choose. I can wake up each morning and ask myself, “What am I going to do to make this day fun?” I travel and have never, ever been bored as a retiree.

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Coming Home and Getting Organized Vera If you are living your life as an old woman who is not involved in a romantic relationship, and you love going to social activities, you’re not going to get invited to a lot of social events; there is absolutely no advantage to having you there, according to many women. However, if a man is old and single—even if he can barely walk with a cane or crutch—he is viewed as an asset to the social event. This kind of sexism and ageism is only going to be confronted by women who embrace the feminist notion that being as independent as one can possibly be, particularly by acquiring an education, is an important way of ensuring that you will be a contributor to society in ways that do not confine you to a particular role or place. Barbara Macdonald (1913–2000) is an out lesbian feminist I knew and truly admired, who wrote a book of essays titled Look Me in the Eye: Old Women, Aging, and Ageism.14 She was one of the first feminists to identify ageism as a central feminist issue, and her book is like the Bible in the antiageism movement. As Lise Weil writes in the afterword of the expanded 2001 edition, “Barbara embraced the word ‘old.’ She rejected the terms ‘older woman’ and ‘elder’ not only as the euphemisms they obviously are but because both assume youth as the measure. She saw our avoidance of ‘old’ as the clearest sign of our shame around aging, and she understood that shame was political, an internalization of our culture’s message that ‘old is ugly, old is powerless, old is the end, and therefore that old is what no one could possibly want to be.’ ”15 Ageism disempowers all women, Barbara showed us, not only by dividing young from old, but also as the youth threshold for women keeps being lowered, by instilling the dread of age earlier and earlier in women’s lives. The only way to eradicate that dread, she saw, is to remove the stigma of age at the extreme end.16 Barbara Macdonald’s writings inspired me, my friend Shevy, and a few others to cofound Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC).17 I met Shevy in 1987 through an ad in a lesbian newsletter announcing plans for the first West Coast celebration of old lesbians. I became a member of the Southern California planning committee. Shevy was a member of the Southern California planning committee and the primary organizer. At the first planning meeting, I was very impressed with her. She had tremendous exposure with minority communities and issues, and the fact that she was Jewish and had experienced discrimination helped us develop a quick friendship. Shevy was raised as a communist by her mother, and her background in social justice issues made her hate to see people treated unfairly.

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At one point Shevy, her partner Ruth, and I all moved to Northern California and did almost everything together. I did not live far from them, and we would travel to San Francisco together on weekends. To be a member of OLOC you must be 60 or older. Some of us are feminists, but during the 1980s it was difficult to find many feminists who were also out lesbians in this age category. Nonetheless, we decided that OLOC would be a political advocacy organization for old lesbians. Although many of our members have been exposed to the feminist movement, antiageism and resisting homophobic, antilesbian institutions are the focus of the organization. The purpose of OLOC is to grow old gracefully and to acknowledge that there is such a thing as “old.” You know, the civil rights movement took back the word Black. And in OLOC we have taken back the word old. If you’re going to call me “old” behind my back, I’m going to make it comfortable for you to call me “old” in front of my face. And if you’re not old by the time you’re 60, when are you ever going to be old? By the time you’re 60, your whole approach to life changes. You’re no longer worried about being competitive in the work world; you’re not devoting all of your time and monies to fashion. You’re thinking, “Am I going to have enough money to last me for the length of my life? Am I going to have a place to live where I can feel safe and secure for the rest of my life? Am I going to have good healthcare?” These are paramount issues on your plate once you turn 60. It’s not all of that other, fluffy stuff.18 OLOC provides an environment where you can grow old comfortably. We have panels at our annual conferences where we encourage women to get rid of internalized homophobia, internalized ageism, and to get their legal paperwork in place. We try to give lesbians updates on the best healthcare, how to get it, where to get it, and we give them updates on Social Security issues. We talk about living with a terminal illness, living with the death of a partner, being caretakers in this age group, how to get support and not become a martyr, and how to ask for help when you need it. We have people come from all over the country, and from little rural areas, who have never been anyplace where they have seen more than two lesbians! They leave the conference like they just got a B-12 shot! One day Shevy decided she and Ruth were going to buy a recreational vehicle and travel for a year. They had so much fun that they traveled for a second year. We talked on the telephone and wrote to each other over that two-year period. Then Shevy and Ruth heard about plans being made by two lesbians for a lesbian RV park in Arizona, and they decided to buy a lot. They begged me to visit and to consider moving there. I visited twice and then decided to make the move. However, by the time I made my decision, the first park’s lots were all sold. I had to get a lot in another park across the street, which Zoe

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Swanagon purchased because of the high demand. Shevy and Ruth are truly like sisters to me. So moving to the park was like moving home.

Coming to Grips Vera The park tries to provide communal support to couples and individuals who are grappling with a serious illness. I don’t have a partner, so everything is my decision. I keep my son and grandchildren informed of how I want things done and where to find my legal documents. I also have friends in the park who know how to be helpful to my family if something should happen to me. My neighbor has a set of keys to my house, my car, and knows where important documents are. For a long time I was the only woman of color who was also a permanent resident. Then I recruited an African American lesbian couple, who have lived here for a year but plan to leave.19 This season a renter is here from Delaware, and another woman of color with a White partner, from Oregon, is here seasonally. But there are no other permanent residents of color here. In the other park, they have one single person of color who just melts into the crowd and one mixed couple, one Irish the other African American, from New York. The history of Black people has been all about trying to meet the standards that White people have set for us. If you are on limited funds, this place can be a problem. We are constantly having to prove that we’re okay, that we’re achievers, and that we’re acceptable. In that process, we try to live as affluently and comfortably as we can make it, and ultimately that makes us consumers; but for most Black people who actually could afford to come here, this park is a step down. To come live in a place that is still referred to as a “trailer park,” that is not an option! Then, you come in here and the percentage of people of color is so minute that people say to me all the time, “Why are you living there and how can you stand it?” Well, like I said, it fits my scheme of things, moneywise. I have a damn good pension because I worked 39 years for Los Angeles County. This allows me to live comfortably and still have a cash flow to help whoever, whenever. Some residents felt that the founders and owners of the park made too much of a profit in the process of subdividing park lots and selling them. I did not agree. I felt that as a businesswoman, Zoe Swanagon had the right to make a profit, and I did not find the price of my lot exorbitant. There was no place in California where I could buy a lot for $15,500. I thought it was the greatest deal ever and that the owners’ vision outweighed any differences of opinion about what was a decent profit. A group of lesbians who bought plots in the

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second park became angry and filed a lawsuit against Zoe. Our homeowners’ association spent a disgusting amount of money on attorney’s fees and lost the lawsuit because Zoe hadn’t done anything wrong! The lawsuit lasted longer than it should have and created tensions among the residents in the first park across the street who sided with Zoe. Since I lived in the second park, as a board member of the homeowners’ association I had to negotiate friendships with both sides and was completely drained by the politics. I had to accept that you cannot please some lesbians, no matter what you try to do. There’s a certain group of women who just don’t ever agree with anything we do in this park. The difference or distinction between the two parks can be seen in the tension regarding aerobics classes and other activities. This park was not made on the same level of luxury as the other one, and after losing all that money during the lawsuit, our home owner association (HOA) money couldn’t be used to maintain our facilities. The first park has been able to build up its HOA funds. Their park is more luxurious, the clubhouse, the swimming pool, the laundry, etc. are in better condition. When we have social events in my park, many people from across the street come over here. Entertainment, commitment ceremonies, dinners—they will be the first to come, take all of the good seats, and have a good time. But we don’t get invited to things they do over there, because they are using the issue with the attorney general as an excuse. There are more retired military over there, and many of them came with a stronger financial status. They are also more snobbish. Lesbians who had cash flow here were able to help lesbians who didn’t, since many of us couldn’t pass the traditional credit check. Many women in this RV park have no health coverage. At first, when White women told me their sad stories I looked at them and said, “What is your problem? You have access, you have privilege because you are White, so, what’s your problem?” Then I met a White woman from a working-class family who told me how she struggled to get her education, and my attitude about White women changed. I realized then that not all White women had the same amount of privilege. However, I had encountered so many who had abused their White skin privilege and their access to things that I, as a Black woman, had to fight for; and I really hated their abuse of this privilege. My attitude was that nobody slammed doors in your face just because your skin tone wasn’t right. For years I was the only woman of color in this park who was a primary-residence owner. I have a very dear friend who is Irish and who also sees herself as a misfit, and she said to me recently, “How do you live in this park?” and I said, very carefully, very carefully, “I know exactly who is sincere, who really values me as a human being, respects me as a human being, and isn’t putting on a front.” It’s unfortunate how the racism of some White women prevents them from truly knowing a Black woman. They don’t have a clue what they’re missing, because I personally would make

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a damn good friend. That’s why I really appreciate Shevy as my friend because she was crazy enough to say to me one day, “Vera, let’s organize Black History Month activities in the RV park this year.” We have people who are old but who have themselves internalized ageism. They don’t want to hear the word old and don’t want to accept they are old. Then we have younger people who use us as their mirror, and they think, “God forbid, I don’t want to be like that.” Being old is associated with being ill or disabled in some fashion. Until the African American couple—they are also in OLOC—got here, Shevy, Ruth, and I were the only ones growing old gracefully. We call ourselves “old,” and we tell our age, and we call ourselves “old lesbians.” All of those things are no-nos. There are other members of OLOC, but in all these years we have not been able to get a good, strong, viable OLOC chapter going in the park. We had an OLOC meeting in the other park, and my park invited OLOC members and park residents for a potluck dinner. I went on stage and told a few jokes and thanked the park for hosting OLOC members and said what a great experience it has been to live here as free, old lesbians, recognizing our partners and relationships without fear of criticism or being under a microscope. I used the word “old” and the word “lesbian,” and a number of people came up to me afterward and said, “We don’t use those words here.” And I said, well I’ve already used them; nobody prepped me!”

Coming Full Circle Vera Most of my friends are lesbians because I can’t live two different lives. I am an out Black lesbian who befriends people who can accept both parts of me. Despite the injustices, I could never label myself a feminist separatist, because all my life I have been on the receiving end of “separatism” based on race. I can’t imagine myself inflicting that kind of rejection on any gender. Therefore, I am a lesbian who has good male friends whom I absolutely adore—and I think they adore me. I don’t want to live a life without them—I just don’t want to live with them! I’m more comfortable in a female setting. I must say, sometimes I’m very disappointed in the behavior of some of the women in this female setting. Nonetheless, I still prefer living in a predominantly female setting when given a choice. I know I have become a stronger feminist when I see what the male power brokers do to us as women when we are no longer taking care of the house and the children and when we are no longer bearing their children. As we age, we are often set aside by men and so poorly treated, as we grow older,

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that the injustice of it just makes me boil all over! I am probably in many ways a stronger feminist and a better advocate for women now than when I was younger, because I have survived many injustices and have grown extremely confident over the years. My politics sometimes seem 10 light-years away from most people regarding race, sexuality, gender, and age-related issues. I think everyone should be able to have a decent place to sleep and a reasonable amount of well balanced meals, and whatever I can do to make sure that happens is part of my politics. I have no problems socializing with heterosexuals, working with heterosexuals, or being friends with heterosexuals. However, I have dealt with heterosexuals who have a problem socializing with me. For instance, I asked a woman who was new in town if she wanted to go to certain social events with me so that she could meet more people. She told people that she was not a lesbian at every social event we attended. To me, her need to introduce herself and her sexuality as heterosexual was a kind of homophobia that I just didn’t want to deal with anymore. So I stopped inviting her to functions with me. One time, a lesbian friend of mine told her not to worry about people mistaking her for a lesbian because people are always mistaking us for heterosexuals! I would also prefer it if every gay person stood up and said “This is who I am,” because numbers matter. However, I understand that in some job situations and in some family structures, some people feel it is unsafe to do that. I definitely don’t believe in outing people, but, yes, I would like them to stand up and be counted. Some Black people have said, being gay and Black is fine, but leave those politics in the bedroom. That statement is strange advice, in my opinion, because I am who I am, in my bedroom and outside my bedroom. The statement demonstrates their intolerance, and that’s unfortunate. Many of us knew we were Black before we even knew what sexuality was, and as Black people all of us have to grapple with issues regarding equality and liberation. There is strength in numbers, and we need to get the numbers wherever we can! Most important, all of the “isms” are related. When you are also unfortunate enough to have to waltz around two or three of them simultaneously, it gets tiresome. Today, I still have to deal with racism, ageism, and being unpartnered as a lesbian in a homophobic, couple-oriented world. Despite these things, I still make every effort to be an independent person.

Notes 1. Elwood, S. A., 2000, “Lesbian Living Spaces, Multiple Meanings of Home.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 4(1): 11–27.

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2. Kornblum, J., 1997, “Gay and Gray: Aging Baby Boomers Are Fueling a Demand for Gay and Lesbian Retirement Communities, but They’re Also Resisting Them,” The Advocate 737: 46. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. The entire history of both parks in this section is taken from Gerstell, M. F., 2003, The Gay and Lesbian Review (September/October), 29–31. 6. Gerstell 2003, p. 30. 7. For a study on how feminism is a survival tool for women, see S. Klonis, J. Endo, F. Crosby, and J. Worrell, 1997, “Feminism as Life Raft.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21(3): 333–45. 8. hooks, b., 1990, “Homeplace: A Site of Resistance,” in her Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End), 41–49. 9. Ibid. 10. Elwood 2000. 11. Perry, T. D., and L. P. Swicegood, 1992, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore: The Story of Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Churches (New York: St. Martin’s). 12. For additional information on the various perspectives regarding butch-femme politics in lesbian communities see Gibson, M., and D. Meem, 2002, Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go (New York: Routledge); See also Goodloe, A., 1993, “Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Butch/Femme Roles,” http://www.lesbian. or/amy/essays/bf-paper.html. Retrieved January 22, 2009. 13. Kanuha, V., 1990, Compounding the Triple Jeopardy: Battering in Lesbian of Color Relationships (New York: Haworth). 14. MacDonald, B., with C. Rich, 1983, Look Me in the Eye: Old Women, Aging, and Ageism (San Francisco: Spinsters Ink/Aunt Lute). 15. Weil, L., 2001, “Afterword,” in Look Me in the Eye: Old Women, Aging and Ageism ([Expanded edition] Spinsters Ink), 92. 16. Weil 2001. 17. See http://www.oloc.org. 18. For additional readings: Cole, E., E. Rothblum, and R. Thone, 1992, Women and Aging: Celebrating Ourselves (New York: Routledge); Alexander, J., 1986, Women and Aging: An Anthology by Women (Corvallis, OR: Calyx Books). 19. For another African American feminist perspective on living in the park, see Barnes, S., 2005. “My Life in a Lesbian Community: The Joys and the Pain,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 9(1–2): 45–54. Barnes left the park stating (1) the park was too isolated from urban centers, (2) the surrounding town lacked part-time work opportunities, (3) certain park rules conflicted with personal lifestyle choices (e.g., fragrance-free zones), (4) a large of number of apolitical, closeted lesbians were permanent residents, and (5) the apolitical stance of most residents promoted covert expressions of ageism, classism, and racism.

Part III

Romantic Partnerships

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Chapter 8

The Second Time Around Marriage, Black Feminist Style

Pearl Cleage

When I met my first husband, I was running for my life. So was he. I was hiding from a former fiancé whose charming attentiveness—which had earned me the admiration of my dorm mates when we started dating—had segued into violent possessiveness. His determination to control my comings and goings culminated in a terrible act: he stripped me naked and tied my hands and feet while he went out one afternoon, admonishing me not to move until he returned, or suffer the consequences. When he did return, he carried me to his bed and forced me to have sex while he whispered a promise to cut my face with razors if I ever left him. My new husband’s struggle was less personal, but no less deadly. A strong believer in nonviolence, he was reluctantly interrupting his graduate studies in literature to take a teaching position at a historically Black college. An educational deferment would keep him from joining thousands of other young men on their way to Vietnam. When we met, I had escaped my fiancé’s torment by being accepted into a summer program at Yale, which carried a modest stipend. My incredibly ingenuous plan to save my life was to forgo my senior year at Howard University, where my lover was anxiously awaiting my return, head for New York City, and, by budgeting carefully, live on my $500 windfall while pursuing my dream of becoming a playwright. Although I clung to this fantasy throughout the early weeks of the program, I began to sense its inadequacy as the time came to move. My boyfriend’s letters, phone calls, and surprise visits to New Haven were evidence that returning to school was not an option if I valued my safety or my sanity, but even I realized that my fantasy of relocating to New York was just that: a fantasy. Other than

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disappearing into some imaginary Black theater demimonde, the only additional possibility was dragging home in disgrace, so my parents could protect me, a humiliation from which I feared I might never recover. My trajectory from star student to free woman was in danger of being derailed by a man whose violence I had yet to reveal to friends, family, or fellow students. I was scared and, I realized, unprepared to take care of myself. I had never lived alone, never learned to drive, never balanced a checkbook. From where I was sitting, the world seemed a pretty dangerous place, and although I would have denied it if anybody had asked me directly, what I was looking for was someone to save me. I dreamed of a strong, smart man, making his own way in the world, unintimidated by my boyfriend’s rage, convinced that all he needed to make his life complete was a fragile, frightened 20 year old without a clue. It didn’t occur to me until years after our marriage had run its 10-year course that my first husband, in his headlong rush to adjust to the sudden, insistent presence of Uncle Sam, did find exactly what he needed in me: somebody even more terrified of the future than he was. In the face of my helplessness, he felt less vulnerable. He had already successfully lived alone (in New York City, no less), had his own driver’s license, and could balance a checkbook without breaking out in a cold sweat. He liked to give directions, and I was trained to take them. After all, I had gotten used to my exboyfriend backhanding me across the mouth when I fell short of the mark. My new husband’s penchant for stony silences to show his disapproval seemed a small price to pay. I convinced myself we were made for each other. Five years later, the fit that had seemed so perfect in our time of mutual crisis was beginning to chafe. Always a political activist on race and war, I had found a feminist friend and, through her, discovered the women’s movement. My violent college love affair no longer seemed shameful evidence of my personal weakness, but part of the larger problem of male violence against women. My frustration at balancing my infant daughter’s needs, my husband’s demands, and the exhausting requirements of my job as press secretary to Atlanta’s first Black mayor was not simply a matter of poor organization, but a problem shared by thousands of women all anxiously searching for new solutions. Buoyed by the support of my newfound sisterhood, and undeterred by my husband’s horrified protests, I left my highly paid, high-profile, high-stress job for a less lucrative part-timer, rented a tiny studio from a colony of artists renovating an old school building, and tried to remember how to write something other than campaign speeches. It was a long, slow, scary, painful process, but as the decade of my 20s came to a close, I had finished a play, found a new apartment, and filed for divorce. When I signed the papers reclaiming my “maiden” name, I felt a tremendous sense of relief and anticipation. My life was my own for the very first time,

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and the possibilities seemed endless. I wanted to write and travel and raise my daughter and have my friends over for dinner. I wanted to walk the world’s beaches in moonlight, watch the sun rise over the mountains, and learn to ride the New York subways. I wanted to fly the Concorde to Paris, shave my head, and learn Tai Chi. I wanted to sip champagne at dawn and drink red wine to stain my lips at midnight. There was no limit to the list of what I wanted to do and only one thing in which I had absolutely no interest: marriage. In my newly liberated state, the institution seemed hopelessly outdated and relentlessly oppressive. I had had my share of that kind of fun during a decade of domesticity, and although I had every intention of participating fully in what I hoped would be a series of transcendent and transforming love affairs, I would never again define and confine myself by becoming anyone’s wife. That was then. This is now. In March, I will celebrate my second wedding anniversary. Sometimes I look at my husband with such contentment, I can’t remember what it was like not having him around, but when I put my mind to it, I can remember absolutely: it was wonderful. At 30, I was a free woman for the first time in my life and loving it. My daughter was growing up sane in spite of my unintentional efforts to drive her crazy. I was figuring out how to make a living as a writer. I was meeting new people who shared my new interests. I was perfecting my lasagna recipe, and watching French movies, so I could approach my newly bohemian life with the proper mixture of joie de vivre and anomie. Giddy with the power and pleasure of paying my own way, I was flying solo for the first time in my life. I didn’t need a man to fit in socially. My new friends were artists, saxophone players, actors, and activists, straight and gay, young and not so young. Pairing people off boy/girl/boy/girl at sit-down dinner parties was not part of the program. I didn’t need a man to support me financially. I was able to pay my bills with a succession of freelance assignments and some part-time teaching jobs. I had found a tiny apartment in a neighborhood that didn’t require me to bear arms on routine trips to the grocery store, so I didn’t need a man to protect me. And, last, but certainly not least, my biological clock had been beautifully silenced once and for all by the birth of my daughter, by then almost five, so I didn’t need a man to help me reproduce. I was free to see men as friends, comrades, lovers, and collaborators who could enrich my life, instead of sustaining it. It was an exciting time of personal discovery and growth and I had some unforgettable adventures, some interesting near-escapes, and more than my share of tender moments. I even managed to save enough money to buy a house with a real southern magnolia tree out front, some authentic Georgia pines out back, and a side porch where I could sip my tea and watch the world go by. On a balmy summer evening in my new house, I sat laughing and drinking wine with a man who had been my trusted friend and confidant throughout

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this whole process. I turned to join him in a celebratory toast to the successful completion of one project or another and realized I had, as the song says, fooled around and fallen in love. My friend was smart, sexy, and single. He made me laugh, and he made me think with the same throwaway charm. He thought my work was important, and I thought his was wonderful. Since we were both writers, we understood the demands of the process and didn’t take the craziness personally when the pages wouldn’t come, and the deadline was just around the corner. We traded books and walked by the river and struggled over feminist questions that were new to him and still growing in me. We trusted each other to keep the secrets we were whispering in the dark. I knew I liked him a lot, realized I missed him when we couldn’t get together, and looked forward more and more to the times when we could. But love? I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t think I was strong enough to survive it without selling myself out or driving some poor man crazy. On the other hand, I was now old enough to know that the kind of love that this was beginning to feel like was a great gift, not to be taken lightly. After all, I argued with myself, falling in love is fine. Getting married is the problem. Even moving in together (which I realized I was already considering) is not the same as entering into a legal agreement that would subject us to the rules set up by the state of Georgia, the same state whose laws we were already breaking regularly by choosing to have unmarried sex. Besides, both of us had been married once. We had all the children we intended to have, and we did not want or need to involve ministers, state health departments, and official licensing bureaus in the most intimate parts of our lives, again. Armed with these rationalizations, I welcomed my feelings for my friend, who, it quickly became clear, was way ahead of me. We started spending more and more time together. His presence provided me with something I had missed without ever having had it: another person who saw the world the same way I did, and whose responses to it often mirrored my own. Gradually, since we were now almost always in each other’s presence, we began to talk about living together. Convinced he was completely honorable and would propose no threat to my now adolescent daughter, I waited a few weeks to see if I could talk myself out of it, and when I couldn’t, I invited him to move into my house. He accepted with enthusiasm, and we sat down to discuss how to best use the living space to accommodate us. Since my house had a warm, dry lower level as large as the upper portion, I suggested that we use the house as if it were a duplex, claiming discreet living quarters on our own floors. We would share the washer and dryer (downstairs) and the kitchen (upstairs). Although we anticipated sleeping together most of the time, we each had a bedroom, so our nightly snuggling would continue to be a choice, not a habit or simply a result of having no place else to go. We agreed

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that if living in close quarters didn’t turn out to be as sweet as we hoped, we would go back to separate residences as fast as he could pack the U-Haul. As it turned out, our arrangement worked even better than we thought it would. The upstairs space continued to be unapologetically gynocentric, accented with sunflowers, the sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and photographs of Black women and children, while downstairs was the site of weight lifting and Monday Night Football with a sound track by the original Temptations. I enjoyed the increased intimacy without feeling smothered and was delighted to find that everything just seemed to get better. So the question must be asked, if everything was so good, why mess with success? The answer is simple, and it still surprises me: it was time. I have never been more certain of anything in my life or more called upon to trust my instincts way down at the deepest levels where magic is all that matters. It was time. The thought first occurred to me one night when we were watching The Battle of Algiers, an amazing film that chronicles the bloody struggle for Algerian independence. The French soldiers are relentless in their pursuit of the freedom fighters who are equally tireless in their determination to be free. In the midst of a long siege, filled with betrayal, panic, torture, and death, a young couple seizes a relatively quiet moment for their long-delayed wedding ceremony. Surrounded by the rubble of bombed-out buildings and the burned shells of ruined automobiles, the young bride drapes a wedding veil over her head and clasps the hand of her lover, who joins his vows with hers against a background of approaching gunfire. Their passionate embrace at the end of the brief ceremony seems the only antidote to the murder and madness. Their fierce determination to proclaim and celebrate their love seems an act of such power and purity that it alone is capable of ensuring their own survival, the survival of their beleaguered band, and, by extension, the Algerian people. As an African American woman whose community, beset by AIDS, crack, unemployment confusion, and self-hate, is in perhaps the worst shape since slavery, I identified strongly with the need for rituals to strengthen and renew us collectively. I was drawn to the faith that the simple ceremony exemplified. Watching the couple promise each other their lives, something in me felt that it was time for me to make some vows of my own. I felt an emotional shift, a glimmer of understanding of the fact that because I was new, any marriage I entered could also be new. Our acceptance of the roles we played as conscious Black artists was now clearly the foundation of a love that not only sustained and nurtured the two of us but also connected us to a wider struggle to sustain and nurture the group of which we were a part. That was the first time I thought seriously about getting married. The second time is harder to describe, having mainly to do with revelations reached at 35,000 feet, which are always suspect because of the effects of airplane air and

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a vodka and tonic before boarding. Suffice it to say, on a flight home from a trip that I couldn’t wait to finish, I absolutely knew, with a perfect peace, that I wanted to marry and share my life as fully and as honestly and passionately as I knew how. I wanted to say yes, up front and out loud, when we were being pushed on every side to say no, to live no, to be no. I wanted to make the effort as my mother and grandmothers and their grandmothers had; the effort to find love among what were supposed to be ruins. I was sure. It was time. When he finally agreed, after waiting overnight to be sure I was sure and not just glad the plane had landed safely, we got a license and paid our fee and called our friends and lit the candles and asked the judge if he could do it at our house, and he said yes. And Joe played the saxophone, and my daughter stood up with me, and the best man smiled over my husband’s shoulder when he heard me say, “I do.” Afterward, we drank champagne and hugged each other as tightly as we could. We’re old enough this time around to know how rare it is to share a perfect moment with people who love you not in spite of but because of who you are. So far, so good.

Chapter 9

“Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone” Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me

William Dotson

You might call this chapter the “Diary of a Black Man’s Struggle to Attain Feminist Manhood.” While contemporary African American movies like Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Waiting to Exhale, and The Women of Brewster Place are popular at the box-office, films titled Diary of an Angry Black Man, Waiting to Leave Jail to Exhale, and The Men of That Hurting, Lonely Place have yet to be produced. Although the subtitle of this collection is African Americans Doing Feminism, feminism “did” more to me than I “did” to or with it. However, I have learned from it through the actions of my former, feminist lover, “Constance” (not her real name). Our very special relationship has ebbed and flowed for more than 20 years. It’s her choice to remain anonymous. However, my name, William (Bill), is stamped on the text in order to humbly admit and bear testimony about whom I was before my exposure to feminism and whom I have become and also hope to become after years of exposure to it. Quite frankly, I have fallen. I would like to get up as well as look up to the feminist visions of manhood that other Black feminist men have modeled.1 If there is hope for me (and I believe that there is), then perhaps some other brother can believe that there is hope for him—and maybe even some sisters can believe there is hope for some brothers.2 I have come to the realization that one of the biggest wars I fight is not against “the system” or Black women but against myself—my highest self versus my lowest self. The war with myself continues, but I am finally ready to write about it. Let me confess that I have never written about a relationship in my life. I consider myself a thinker and have worked in some capacities as a motivational

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speaker—yet I have never been motivated to think, speak, or write about any of my relationships with women. I feel embarrassed to admit this, but it is true. I am tempted to fall back on the excuse “It’s a male thang” to hold in feelings and thoughts and say, “It’s a woman thang” to express those same feelings and thoughts. Men are supposed to be from Mars, and women are supposed to be from Venus, right?3 Wrong. Men are human, women are human, we are both from Earth, and I am finally tired of the worn-out excuses—even the popular psychological ones—that give me permission to remain “a boy in denial.” A Black feminist male writer, Kalamu ya Salaam, assures me that my male chauvinist “impotence need not be permanent . . . and it can be cured.”4 Rather than calling some brothers to engage in an “intellectual male-bonding ritual of collective denial,” I am willing to admit that a significant part of my perceived “endangerment” as a Black man is due to my own behavior and its association with a narrow definition of manhood as meaning “the conqueror, the dominator.”5 Feminist researchers in masculinity studies have well established that most popular definitions of manhood are based on domination.6 I am reluctant to write about how wrong I have been—and sometimes continue to be—regarding my relationships with women. I must come face-toface with the serious shortcomings of “my own man-self”; there is no one else to blame. I must come to grips with the past that was, the present that is, and the future that will be if I do not change. My options currently are change or be alone. What follows are the revelations of a dishonest Black man and his difficulties fostering a loving, self-disclosing, willing-to-be-vulnerable partnership with a very special Black feminist woman. Today Constance and I have a somewhat distant, platonic, and respectful friendship. Although Constance eventually ended our romantic relationship, the end of a relationship with someone can be a beginning of a healing relationship with one’s self. Constance left me with words that describe my reality: “Patriarchy will not heal me, if that were so, I would be well.”7 Patriarchy is not good for women or men who strive to be whole. Each hello and goodbye with Constance made this truth painfully clear.

The First Hello Twenty years ago, Constance was a very impressionable first-year doctoral-level graduate student. I was an advanced doctoral student. My attraction to her, initially, was mainly physical. I saw her as deliciously attractive—as something to eat. I saw her as “young-beautiful-prey” and seductively invited her into my lion’s den. Patriarchal masculinity teaches men that our sense of self and identity—in fact, our very sense of being—resides in our capacity to dominate the planet, women, other men, children, the boardroom, the bedroom, any

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situation, every situation.8 If I had kept a diary of my feelings and thoughts at the time, I would have recorded something like this: We met, and we talked but I didn’t hear a word she said— I wanted that pretty, young bitch in my bed! Her nice shapely body, each curve pound for pound I ’sho ’nuff wanted this black beauty around! Watch out, sweetie pie, said the spider to the fly Every “Hello” ain’t “Hi” . . . there are traps nearby. Yes, my thoughts were raw, stereotypical, self-centered, and totally objectified Constance. My “hello” to her was all about me, and only one head was greeting her naive “hi” in return.

The Annual “Goodbyes” Over the next several years I grew to love and know Constance differently. We dated seriously, met each other’s families, spent holidays together, wrote to each other when our job choices took us to different geographic regions, and took vacations together. Our trips ranged from places like Atlanta to Africa. At one point our mutual interests allowed us to cofacilitate cultural diversity workshops for nonprofit agencies based on our collective academic experiences in African American studies and the social sciences. I also assisted Constance in an important research study that resulted in her first book-length scholarly publication. Although we never lived together—we rarely lived in the same city—we had truly found a home in each other’s heart. I began to see Constance in whole parts; I got glimpses of her soul and spirit as well as her vibrant personality and brains. But, seeing Constance whole made me feel fragmented and unworthy. I could not be monogamous, and I used other women to assuage my ego. The words of bell hooks expose my uncomfortable reality, “[P]atriarchal masculinity encourages men to be pathologically narcissistic, infantile, and psychologically dependent on the privileges (however relative) that [men] receive simply for having been born male. Many men feel that their lives are being threatened if these privileges are taken away as they have structured no meaningful core identity.”9 Was my core identity, as a man, based on equality and justice? I knew what equality and justice meant intellectually, and I knew that I wanted equality and justice as a Black man. My problem was simple: what I knew in my head I knew not in my heart. The equality and justice I was asking from others, I was unprepared, unwilling, and too self-absorbed to give in return. I mistakenly perceived Constance as robbing me of what I thought was my “manhood.” However, Constance was

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merely asking me to reinterpret my sense of “manhood and its related privileges”—my inability to be monogamous, my refusal to prioritize the relationship over golf most weekends, and my overall unwillingness to engage in emotional intimacy—as thinly disguised forms of emotional abuse. Once again, bell hooks eloquently describes what we routinely call “male privilege” as “expressions of perverted power relations, general lack of control over one’s actions, emotional powerlessness, extreme irrationality, and in many cases, outright insanity.”10 Men’s disturbed behavior should not be described positively as “privilege” because as long as we men equate the abuse of women with privilege, we will have no understanding of the damage done to ourselves or the damage we do to others, and, more important, the need to change.11 I cannot explain why Constance allowed my arrogant sexist ass into her humble feminist life—that’s her story to tell. I talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk, so Constance said goodbye several times over the course of our friendship.

I Say “Hi” You Say “Bye” Constance managed to welcome my presence into her life every other year or so. Through no great accomplishment of my own I grew to love her and made incremental changes in my behavior, particularly regarding my communication style. For instance, I made efforts to “show up”—to “be present” in the relationship emotionally as well as physically—by sharing my feelings with her and listening to her reality as an African American woman rather than dominating conversations about my reality as an African American man. Such deep feelings complicated things for me because there is an unwritten rule in the ’hood that you don’t fuck over people you love. My diary during this period would have read like this: She whadn’t NO bitch no mo’! And I didn’t know how to tell her so! So sexy, so smart, so Black and fine— Never did I think she deserved to be mine! So, in this deal I was the bullshitting one There was nothing she could have said There was nothing she could have done I couldn’t be real! I couldn’t be still! Too busy searching for that endless sexual thrill. Every “hello” ain’t “hi!” and every “goodbye” ain’t “bye!” And I am knee-high In my own bullshit.

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The words of Kevin Powell, a young hip-hop writer, painfully come to mind: I am a recovery misogynist. I do not say this with pride. Like a recovering alcoholic or crack fiend who has righted her or his ways, I am merely cognizant of the fact that I have had some serious problems in my life with and in regard to women. I am also aware of the fact that I can lapse backward—and have—at any time.12 I am embarrassed as I reflect on how I have behaved over the years. I would be sexual with other women and would hide this fact from Constance or lie about it. Even though our “hello-goodbye” rituals always left me feeling empty, each hello got me excited! With each new “hello” I made some minimal progress toward feminism, and thus my own humanity by accepting certain feminist perspectives in principle—but rarely enough to make Constance stay for the long term. Feminist perspectives were still treated as intellectual ideas that mainly applied to women. I was in a vicious cycle and would eventually mess up—again.

You Say “Hi” I Say “Bye” Dear Diary, I find myself cowering away from Constance’s intense honesty during this latest “hello” cycle. She listens to me with glazed enthusiasm. She is so effervescent and, once again, lovingly invites me into her body, soul, and life. I clearly understand my options and her intentions, and sadly, I am not willing to accept the price of this honest invitation. The price would mean being honest with myself about how unethical I am. I cannot measure up. I cannot be monogamous. I cannot make a commitment to her, emotionally or sexually. My refusal to change forced Constance to establish new rules—verbal contracts—in our relationship that I would have recorded in my diary in the following way. We can be like this (platonic) But we cannot be like that (romantic or sexual) You can be my friend like this (my buddy) But you can’t be my friend like that (my lover) You can see me when it’s like this (when I’m in between lovers) But you can’t see me when it’s like that (when I already have a lover) You can be around family and friends when it’s like this (when you are only having sex with me)

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William Dotson But you can’t be around family and friends when it’s like that (when you are having sex with other women) We can get together like this (a sporadic rendezvous) But we can’t get together like that (no long-term commitments) So, back off!

I recall reading a feminist writer who said something like, “Today, Women Who Love Too Much becomes an instant bestseller, but Men Who Hit Too Much, Cheat Too Much, Play Too Rough, and Can’t Love Enough has yet to be written.”13 Writing this chapter is one attempt to add to the missing literature about men, but nothing can make up for my past actions, which I defended in the name of “Black manhood.” I was flattered by the attention of many beautiful women and often slept with them justifying my actions as “manly” and “the norm.” That was the surface reality. The deeper reality was I never felt I deserved a woman like Constance and behaved in ways that confirmed that reality.

The “Hell” of Hello My foolishness managed to seep into Constance’s life, leaving a stain that revealed my less than honest intentions regarding the exclusivity of our relationship. Constance, literally, gave up on me regarding certain options, but she never gave up on me as a human being (and I thank the feminist goddess that gave Constance that extra dose of compassion). Constance continuously tried to renegotiate, redefine, reconstruct, and redesign a relationship with “appropriate” emotional and physical boundaries. “Let’s keep sex out of it,” she said. My translation was: “Let’s be friends who pretend not to have expectations for sex with each other—who pursue other relationships that might result in anything from sex to marriage—just as long as you remember that these options (sex and marriage) are not yours, William Dotson.” One year, I moved in with another woman whom I had absolutely no intention of marrying. I remember introducing this woman to Constance; I was determined to keep Constance in my life. How awkward the meeting, the living arrangement, the entire heart-and-head mismatch was. Even though I truly loved Constance, I refused to meet her standards of monogamy and her belief that the relationship should come before anything else, particularly my love of golf on most weekends. I wanted Constance to know that I could still find someone to love me who didn’t demand as much as she did. So I ignored the twinge in my heart and denied my love for Constance. Both women knew—and I knew too—the truth that no one dared to even whisper. It seeped out in other ways, as my live-in partner unsuccessfully compared herself to and competed with the ghost of Constance. During this time period, my live-in

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partner and I had a child together, but that relationship quickly deteriorated. I missed Constance and found myself wondering what it would have been like to have a child with her.

Hi, Bye (Heavy Sigh) When Constance told me about her relationship with another man, whom she eventually married, I was in the bathtub on the phone with her, trying desperately to be a good sport. I remember thinking to myself, “What chance is she trying to give me by telling me about him and their wedding plans?” I was having a very difficult time with the information. We were both at a crossroads, and decisions had to be made (or not made). My diary would have admitted the following truths: Once again, I pretended not to hear “the call” because I was so emotionally crippled by it all. You’re getting married I want to boo hoo Instead I think I’m living with someone too (So—fuck you!) Then what do I do? Instead of saying, “I love you” I jump from my heart back to my head And decide to play emotionally dead. Every “Hi ain’t Hi” and every “Bye” ain’t “Bye” (heavy tired-ass sigh). I considered that incident a missed “hello” and a very real “goodbye.”

Creepin’ “Hi’s” Creepin’ “Byes” Fifteen years and at least two serious relationships later for each of us, we entered a period of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” negotiations and encounters. These encounters included a refreshing and genuine interest in each other’s professional careers and a mutual decision to include sex in our renewed friendship. We both were nervous about this decision and awkwardly worked our way through the sexual uneasiness. I thought to myself, “This is a real opportunity to engage in a genuine love relationship with Constance in an honest and sexual way—even with my present circumstances.” Yes, there are always “circumstances” in my life that some might more honestly call “chaos.”

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I was then in another live-in relationship that was ending. I was looking for another place and was determined not to use my present situation as an excuse to rebound with Constance. I remember thinking, “I am not trying to fill a void, and I don’t want to build a relationship with Constance on this broken, ending one.” I also thought how awful it would be if I were being dishonest about my feelings for Constance. I have advised others in relationship transitions to beware of chaos, trauma, and drama when trying to manage its end. However, I rationalized my actions and, in a self-serving way, used chaos theory to explain our coming together again. According to chaos theory, which can be demonstrated mathematically, chaos envelops all the possibilities, including the daunting reality that elements in the midst of chaos are also forced to seek order. Sometimes we purposely stick our fingers in our own eyes, numb ourselves from the pain, and deny our fear of loneliness. During these moments we are most vulnerable to memories that come home in the flesh. I thought to myself, “Hello again, Constance; every hello ain’t ‘hi’ and every goodbye ain’t ‘bye’—thank goodness.” Diary musings would have read like this: Fleeting time Precious memories of mine Thoughts of time past Oh, time has passed fast! I never ever forgot your face Tried never to think of you in that other place Two other men in your (my) (our) space My turn again, let’s start with a slow pace. A new opportunity To rekindle old flames A chance to romance you With flowers not games A chance to dream Have sex and ice cream I can be your lover As long as I use a rubber! Hi, my high . . . ! Having contact with Constance again was like, “WOW”! I was experiencing feelings and thoughts for her that I had fantasized about over the past 12 to 15 years. I was determined to be a better friend, a better man. A major part of this new connection was conversing about life matters that were important to us—conversations that would last sometimes until the wee hours in the morning. I knew Constance’s feminism did not include being

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with a man who was living with another woman (regardless of the transitional nature of the live-in relationship). I was experiencing considerable anguish because I had not yet physically removed myself from the current household of my previous partner. Constance made me an exception, given my plans to move out. Constance never talked about my “situation.” She would politely allow us to share periodic updates with one another. For the first time, I was honest, even though my “circumstances” hurt her feminist soul to the core. Even with plans to move out, I knew that the messiness of my situation was still contrary to her feminist ideals. Why am I always involved in some kind of “circumstance?” I would not wish my daughters to be involved with men who had such ongoing “life circumstances.” However, I placed my daughters (and my mother) in a separate category from the other women in my life. The words of the late poet Essex Hemphill, a feminist Black man, capture my frustration with myself and my hypocritical triple standards (for me, my daughters and mother, and other women) when he writes: I am eager to burn this threadbare masculinity, this perpetual black suit I have outgrown.14 Although deeply frustrated, I had not yet fully outgrown that “perpetual black suit,” the strait-jacketlike narrow masculinity that had come to define me and my sordid reality.

How High Is “Hi?” How Low Is “Bye?” Finally, I physically moved from the place where my former partner lived. In desperation, I moved in with my aunt so that Constance and I could begin to spend public and private quality time together. This was our first real opportunity to hang out in a quality way without the considerable baggage of the past haunting us. No promises, no pressures, and a collective sigh. We seemed to say to one another, “Let’s just relax, be as honest as we can, and see where this road takes us.” Constance and I journeyed to places I had never experienced emotionally. We also journeyed to actual local places because Constance had moved back to the city where I lived. Even though she did not move back to live or be with me per se, I had been instrumental in helping her gain access to the job that led to her relocation. The future was open. This “hi” was high indeed. I noticed a different level of honesty in me that represented vulnerability and the willingness to give and take, a willingness

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to be a partner rather than a dictator or martyr in disguise. I acted in ways that demonstrated my respect for Constance as well as myself. I was monogamous and loved her holistically. I was still selfish, but this time I was honest about being selfish, especially when it came to my adamant decision to prioritize golf over the relationship on most weekends. How did I mess things up, again? The unending pathology I brought to our renewed relationship during this cycle was unbearable even for me, let alone Constance! Although I was monogamous, I still felt an uneasiness regarding Constance’s independence and the solid spiritual, political, and emotional integrity that permeated her approach to life. There is no excuse for what I did. Constance needed me, and I chose not be there for her. What manner of man am I? I learned as I listened to Constance’s last cry and the worst goodbye. At first, our coming together again looked like another rainbow on the horizon—intellectual stimulation, bedroom vibration, a partnership in liberation, but as progressive singer and poet Jill Scott would say, “[O]ur beautiful melody became wildly staccato. . . . [T]he season changed and our vibe slipped off its axis.”15 This “goodbye” was as low as the “hi” was high. I was extremely disappointed in myself for being sexually irresponsible. Once again, that elusive pot of gold disappeared with the entire rainbow. I had been out of town, and Constance picked me up at the subway looking extra sexy and totally edible. She had been charting her periods and keeping track of other fertility signals. She told me that she was fertile, which meant that we would have to make love in other ways that did not include penetration. In the middle of our love-making I decided that the rhythms we normally paid attention to could be ignored. Although, technically, the decision was mutual, I believe the call was mainly mine because I pressured Constance to allow me to take risks we had not taken previously during her fertile times. The result was a pregnancy that Constance decided to terminate. I shut down emotionally and played golf to avoid my feelings. Like any other Saturday (the exception being that Constance was scheduled for an abortion, so I had a card and plant in the car for her), I had my golf bags in the car and had spoken with my golf buddies earlier. I dutifully dropped Constance off at the clinic site with the promise to pick her up later. My mind was full of rationalizations, and my attitude was akin to righteous indignation! She was a feminist and could handle it alone, right? She was simply practicing her politics and exercising her choice, right? Constance did not need my support; after all, didn’t she have her own politics, her own decision, her own body to rely on for the support she needed? I felt rather inconsequential in ways that were difficult to articulate. A coldness enveloped me as I began to wonder whether Constance saw an abortion as “garbage in,” “garbage out” as opposed to a procedure that would end our chance to have our baby—my baby. My diary would have recorded my arrogance, my shame, and Constance’s

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piercing words in response to my attempt to justify my emotional and physical withdrawal from her and the entire process: The nerve of you Constance to expect me to stay With you at the clinic when it’s my day to play (golf)! We went to the doctor I stayed in the car. You screamed “What kind of man do you think you are? “I expected more support from a revolutionary brother! “Your sexism is so blatant like a pillow it smothers. “It’s so easy for you to think with your dick— “Your selfishness outrages me and makes me so sick, “Me here choosing abortion, you there choosing golf sticks, “Here’s a potted plant, a card and you’ll pick me up at six? “Your posturing is shallow—I hate the stench of your funky tricks! “Thank God for real Black feminists and R-U-486.”16 Avoiding unwanted pregnancies is not solely women’s work. As a man, I must accept my part. I could have controlled myself in the situation and chose not to do so. I am finally ready to give up the myth that brothers can’t control themselves after a certain point in the sex act; I distinctly remember my choice to pressure Constance and my decision not to do the right thing, even though Constance acquiesced. I was both selfish and foolish. So I failed again and tried to deny that I had made that choice that night. Brothers, Black women are getting pregnant, and they are not getting pregnant by their vibrators! Therefore, they should not have to bear the shame, pain, and blame alone. Of course, merely admitting my part does not right the wrong. I need to make sure this doesn’t happen again by accepting my responsibility in a sexual relationship when we have decided we do not want a pregnancy to occur. Today, I take that responsibility and use condoms regardless of the situation. Will I ever get a chance to right (write) this wrong? Is the damage irreparable? I don’t know. I hope and pray that it is not. Healing will take time. It is humbling to love so hard and fail. To fail is not being able to live truly in the beauty of the possibilities, not allowing the dream of love to live. I can relate deeply to the words of the late Calvin Hernton, a brother who struggled with his own sexism and chronicled this struggle in a little-known article entitled, “On Being a Male Anti-Sexist.”17 He says, To say that I was a sexist and did not know it is not to excuse myself, but to state a fact. In fact, it is irrelevant whether I knew it or not. Whether a fool or a wise man kills you, the result is the same. The process was, and is, a dialectic of Being and Becoming. There is a world of difference between wanting to be and being.

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The entire episode left me feeling weak-kneed and torn with guilt. Not even a golf game could numb the pain and the shame. This situation ended in a very fierce “goodbye” with not even a hint of another “hi.”

The Silent Years, Tears, and the Longest Goodbye The late Black lesbian feminist poet Pat Parker wrote: Brother, I don’t want to hear about how the real enemy is the system. I’m no genius, but I do know that system you hit me with is called a fist.19 I never hit Constance with my fist, but my negligence during the time she terminated the pregnancy, my tendency to deprioritize our relationship whenever I wanted to play golf with my male buddies, and my punishing silence pierced her heart like a knife. She did not see or speak to me for almost five years. It is really sad when even the best examples of so-called Black manhood have to be qualified in ways like, “He was great when he wasn’t drunk,” “At least he brought his pay check home,” “We may cheat but we love our wives and our women on the side.” Too often many of us men find ourselves in nonmonogamous situations “just because” (which simply means that thanks to sexism, we feel entitled). As Kalamu Salaam boldly states, “We oppose raw sexism but remain unwilling to deal with the subtler but nonetheless destructive aspects of our own chauvinist behavior.”20 Constance tried to direct my attention to subtle sexist attitudes I held, but only today can I understand the accuracy of her examples. I honestly felt that because I worked and had an excellent paying job, volunteered and served on the board of directors of certain African American organizations, and was not physically abusing women I could be considered one of the “good Black men.” Constance considered this description as “setting a very low standard for myself and other Black men.” She emphasized feminist principles of reciprocity, compassion, consideration, emotional intimacy, and inner awareness through self-analysis as traits of a positive Black man, a Black woman, and human beings in general. Conversations with her often left me

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feeling underappreciated. I resented the fact that she was not impressed with the external characteristics that many women found sufficient. This unaddressed resentment often led to my emotional and physical withdrawal from her company. I could always find another woman to lick my wounds. Therefore, my last, nonplatonic, and committed relationship with Constance exposed my ugliest contradictions. Constance forced me to see myself in the stories she shared about her previous painful relationships with “the brothers.” She challenged me to do better and to be a better Black man. Her challenge both impressed and depressed me. Diary ramblings during this period would have recorded my fears about myself, along with the hopes I still had for my children: Constance didn’t even want to have my baby To force a commitment from my silent no to “maybe” She refused—unlike the others—to have a baby for me My love for her is reflected in how I want my daughters to be. My feminist daughters would Teach and preach And reach Other sisters and brothers Daring men to be human while being women’s lovers. I am determined that my son not be The example of manhood that looked like me The Black Man who was crippled emotionally. As discouraging as this may sound, I can attest to the fact that I was a better man with Constance this time around. I am a better man now because of how I was with her then. Constance helped me communicate without yelling, without dominating the conversation, and with a sense of mutuality that meant active listening balanced with active emotionally honest sharing. I made mistakes, but I also made inroads into my own interior life and achieved a level of emotional intimacy with a woman and with myself that has increased my overall sensitivity toward women and the everyday subtle forms of sexism.

Hello and Hi ’Cause I Never Can Say Goodbye Today, I can finally understand the kind of partner heterosexual feminist women desire. They want someone who will negotiate life decisions with them as an equal. They want someone who cares about women’s interests in addition to men’s interests. They want someone who will soothe past hurts by living—rather

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than merely preaching—a good sermon. I am not perfect at meeting these needs, but I make an effort in ways that I have not in the past. I certainly practice what I preach in certain areas that reflect a feminist awareness and commitment, especially in the way that I communicate with women. I have worked as an administrator and community advocate in AIDS prevention and educating men and women about safer sex practices regarding other sexually transmitted diseases. Constance and many other Black feminist women are continuing the legacy of the Black radical feminist imagination that Black male feminist historian Robin D. G. Kelley writes about in his book Freedom Dreams.21 I want to join Constance and other feminists on the battlefield, but first I must successfully get through Pearl Cleage’s “Basic Training” where she says: Sexism is still not a word that gets used much in the black community, even though it describes a form of oppression that effects the majority population of the community—women—and is no less virulent and deadly than racism. It oppresses black women with depressing and dependable regularity, just like racism, and it has been thoroughly documented as a fact of American life. Just like racism. In spite of this overload of available information, most black men won’t even admit to the existence of sexism, certainly not within their own communities and almost never in their own lives. . . . If Black men won’t admit that their sexism and male chauvinism and domestic violence are problems, how can we consider them allies in the search for creative solutions?22 I long to be an ally and part of the creative solution more consistently than I am currently. Admittedly, I am not comfortable referring to myself as a “feminist” man. However, I am deeply committed to fighting sexism and consider myself an antisexist man who is slowly weeding out the aspects of sexism that I have internalized. Considering the degree to which I have had my way with so many women, feminism has finally had its way with me! I can understand and accept why some feminist women may believe that my progress is too slow and not good enough to merit a place in this book or even in the feminist movement! I almost feel the same way; however, men come to feminism from a variety of walks in life, and for some of us, the walk is a long, gradual, bumpy one. My last diary entry would have read like this after my last “hello-and-goodbyeritual” with Constance: “Constance, You taught me every ‘hello’ ain’t ‘hi’ and every goodbye ain’t ‘bye’ when forgiveness is also a part of the ritual. And so I ask, myself, ‘How many times can a Black feminist forgive a Black man—and a Black man forgive himself?’ ”

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I last saw Constance roughly three years ago. It was a wonderful reunion that included traveling to her city and engaging in a private meeting with her therapist to describe how I perceived our relationship over the years. Thus, our last hello and goodbye was a therapeutic one. We both had changed, mellowed, found some peace and a lot of acceptance about what had happened despite our best efforts. May we continue to change, mellow, and be open to all of the hellos and goodbyes that life may bring. And may my heart find some peace in knowing that when it comes to Constance, I never can say goodbye . . .

Notes 1. For excellent examples of Black men’s feminist perspectives, see Byrd, R., and B. Guy-Sheftall, eds., 2001, Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). 2. An example of one Black feminist woman’s optimism can be found in White, A. M., 2008, Ain’t I a Feminist? African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom (Albany: State University of New York Press). 3. Gray, J., 1993, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships (New York: HarperCollins). 4. Salaam, K., 1994, “Impotence Need Not Be Permanent: The Decline of Black Men Writing,” in his What Is Life? Reclaiming the Black Blues Self (Chicago: Third World), 131–48. 5. Ibid., 132–34. 6. See Kegan, J., ed., 2002. Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions (New York: Columbia University Press); Brod, H., and Michael Kaufman, eds., 1994, Theorizing Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage); Segal, L., 1990, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press); Schacht, S., and D. Ewing, eds., 1998, Feminism and Men: Reconstructing Gender Relations (New York: New York University Press). 7. hooks, b., 2000, “Feminist Masculinity,” in Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (Cambridge: South End), 71. 8. Ibid., 70. 9. Ibid. 10. hooks, b., 1994, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” in her Feminist Ttheory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End), 67–81. 11. Ibid., 75–76. 12. Powell, K., 2000. “Confessions of a Recovering Misogynist,” Ms. Magazine (April/May), 77. 13. This is a slightly modified comment by Randall, M., 1992, “And So She Walked Over and Kissed Him: Robert Bly’s Men’s Movement,” in Women Respond to the Men’s Movement, ed. Kay Leigh Hagan (New York, Pandora), 145. The exact quote

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reads, “After all, we live in a society where Women Who Love Too Much becomes an instant best-seller, while Men Who Hit Too Much has yet to be written.” 14. Hemphill, E., 1992, “Heavy Breathing,” in Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry (San Francisco: Cleis), 6. 15. Scott, J., 2000. Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds (New York: Hidden Beach Recordings), track 11. 16. Manufacturer’s designation for what is commonly known as the abortion pill (mifepristone). 17. Hernton, C., 1986. “On Being a Male Anti-Sexist,” The American Voice 5: 72–77. 18. Ibid., 86. 19. Parker, P., 1978, Movement in Black: Poetry by Pat Parker (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand), 46. 20. Salaam, K., 1994, “If the Hat Don’t Fit, How Come We’re Wearing It?” in his What Is Life? Reclaiming the Black Blues Self (Chicago: Third World), 121. 21. Kelley, R., 2002, “This Battlefield Called Life: Black Feminist Dreams,” in his Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon), 135–56. 22. Cleage, P., 1993, “Basic Training: The Beginnings of Wisdom,” in her Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot (New York: Ballantine), 21–35.

Chapter 10

When the Hand That Slaps Is Female Fighting Addiction

Dorothy M.

We were sitting in the car. Fiona, my romantic partner, was telling me she was an active crack cocaine user, and I was reeling from the shock. My thoughts were jumbled, “I am living with a crack-head, who is this person I thought I knew? What am I going to do?” I don’t “do” addicts—most of my friends knew not to introduce to me to any—so how did this woman—someone I had affectionately referred to as my “partner for life”—sneak addiction into our lives, more specifically my life? In a fog of fear and disbelief, I heard her frantically explaining that she was in trouble with her drug dealer because she owed him money. I tried to regain my composure by jumping into “problem-solving” mode. I had enough love and support for my partner—and money for that drug dealer—to rescue my partner from her addiction and its consequences. The first order of business included paying off that leech, but I was scared to meet him face-to-face, so I gave her the money. Big mistake. When Fiona returned to the car, I found out that she had simply bought additional drugs rather than paying off the alleged debt. She had lied to me. I felt duped. A monster had taken control of my baby! I asked her to give me the drugs. She refused. I begged her. She still refused. Then, I slapped her. She ignored me. I slapped her again and again. After each slap I demanded that she give me the drugs—and after each slap, she refused. With each slap, I thought about how I was going to beat that monster out of her until it freed her and me from its deadly grip. I wanted to hurt the monster. I wanted to kill the fear of knowing that a monster was sharing my home. Despite beating the monster repeatedly, the monster was still there. The monster was my partner,

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and I was beating her. I let her go; she got out of the car, and she left. And when she left, she left with my dignity, my self-respect, my feminist reputation, my apologies, and worst of all, she left with the drugs. The monster still lived, but now I wasn’t so sure if it lived in me, her, or both of us.1

Battered, Black and Blue: Ghosts from My Past How could I live with myself after repeatedly slapping my partner? I am a feminist. I am a woman-loving woman. I am also a health advocate and, paradoxically, a “lesbian battering” advocate and educator. So, what’s a politically sophisticated feminist like me doing in a repulsive, unfeminist situation like this? Feeling hopeless and depressed, I wondered how I was going to continue teaching women about lesbian battering when I had become the batterer.2 I would be run out of town or, at the very least, ostracized by the same-sex, loving community that had become my cherished adopted family. Although open about my sexuality in the gay community, I was closeted outside it. I felt alone and ashamed. My reputation as a Black-powerful-feminist-warrior-woman, and the fact that I had also fallen in love with a “crack-head” woman, embarrassed and silenced me. Shouldn’t my politics have kept me from ending up in this kind of predicament?

Sibling Abuse I am familiar with battering. I was battered weekly, almost daily, by my older sister, Beth. Beth was overweight, had short, coarse hair and a chronic skin rash, and was considered “too dark-skinned” to be pretty by the White folks’ standards of beauty that most Black folks had come to accept. I, however, was considered pretty by those same standards. I had long hair of a finer texture than Beth’s, a slightly European nose, and my Daddy’s dimples—traits that garnered lots of attention from relatives and extreme jealousy from Beth. Perhaps the contrast in our appearance left Beth longing for the days when she was the only child and, by default, got all of the attention. To make matters worse, Beth was teased mercilessly by other children at school about the wigs my mother made her wear in the hope that they would help Beth’s hair grow. Beth was also a target for bullying by the other kids because of her dark skin tone and her chubby size. Somewhere along the way, I felt that Beth was hurting and needed to take out her pain on me, so I let her. Beth was also one year older than I, taller, bulkier, and stronger. Once she covered my face with a pillow to muffle my screams as she beat down on top of it. When she took the pillow away, blood

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had stained the pillow and my face. I was frightened and amazed that she beat me hard enough to draw blood. Not knowing any better, I mistakenly learned early on that if someone close to me was in pain, that person had a right to take it out on me. With the help of childish martyr fantasies, I convinced myself that being Beth’s punching bag was the least I could do. After all, I got more attention than she and had more friends (at four years old, it was the best rationale I could conjure up). I cried each and every time a beating happened. Sometimes I told my mother, and Beth would get a whipping. Sometimes I fought back, but I quickly learned that the beatings would become more severe when I fought back. I would also get a whipping if I hit her back, because then I was accused by my mother of fighting too. In my family, one hit would beget another hit. Sometimes my adopted sister, Sarah, who came to live with us when I was five, would stand up to Beth for me. I remember Sarah asking why I allowed Beth to beat me up. It puzzled me that she thought I had some power to stop Beth. The beatings continued on a regular basis throughout my childhood, until my first year away at college. I had never heard of sibling abuse. Only many years later, while working as a feminist antiviolence advocate, did I become exposed to this relatively overlooked form of family violence. Beth became a successful professional in “corporate America,” despite her demons and her own experiences of violence, and I learned very early not to trust anyone else’s “best efforts” to keep me safe and to do everything in my power to create that safety for myself. To its credit, the feminist movement has raised awareness about family violence, and as a result many advances have been made in the study of various types of abuse among family members.3 However, sibling abuse remains underrepresented in the professional and popular literature. One expert, Vernon Wiehe, estimates that as many as 53 out of every 100 children are perpetrators of sibling abuse.4 The tolerance of sibling abuse has devastating results for both victim and perpetrator. However, sibling abuse is extremely complicated and not easily defined. According to another researcher: It is difficult to determine where normal developmental behavior between siblings ends and abuse begins. Many factors such as the severity and intent of an act by one sibling and the emotional impact of that act on another sibling, must be considered when determining if an interaction is abusive. Normal sibling conflict usually consists of a mutual disagreement over resources in the family (e.g., parental attention), whereas sibling maltreatment consists of one sibling taking on the role of aggressor in relation to another sibling.5 In addition to physical abuse, 78% of the adult survivors of sibling abuse in Wiehe’s study had experienced emotional abuse, including belittling, intimidation,

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scorn, provocation, destroying possessions, and torturing and killing of pets.6 Such acts are distinguished from “normal” behavior by both constancy and intensity.7 Feminist theory argues that family violence is directly connected to the patriarchal organization of society and that the emphasis on violence and abuse is a way of expressing power to control and dominate others.8 Specifically, the patriarchal arrangement of families is based on power differentials due, in part, to a culturally dictated system of gender and age hierarchies within families.9 Patterns of family violence are also directly related to physical strength and social power as well as the cultural acceptance of the use of force to gain control over others or to resolve conflict.10 Husbands are more likely to inflict injury and resort to using violence to control their wives; parents are stronger than their children and frequently use physical violence to gain compliance; and older sibling perpetrators, like husbands, may experience powerlessness in their immediate social environment but are advantaged in comparison to other family members.11 Older siblings are often more advanced in verbal skills and can easily intimidate younger siblings, making psychological and verbal abuse more effective. Also, older sisters as well as older brothers may seek the benefits they feel entitled to on the basis of birth order and are more likely to inflict injury than younger siblings. Thus, true egalitarian relationships rarely exist in families; and power hierarchies are present, taught, and enforced in most families. This desire for power and control also underlies most forms of family violence. As an African American woman who was taught that corporal punishment is akin to a spiritual mandate (recall the biblical quote interpreted literally by many Black churches, “Spare the rod, spoil the child”), I was surprised to learn that parents who use physical punishment as a discipline method, especially when they are frustrated or angry, provide an aggressive model of interpersonal behavior for their children.12 Physical punishment suggests that it is permissible to hit, slap, or use force under certain conditions; and the family that uses physical violence provides a “training ground” for violent behavior in subsequent generations through repeated exposure.13 Raised in a culture of violence that is accepted by all family members, children often learn to survive through intimidation and cruelty.14 Children who receive punishment from their parents may be defenseless but are powerful enough to hit and hurt their siblings; these aggressive acts are not only an abuse of power but also a means of achieving a sense of control.15 I wish this information had been available to my parents when I was a child. Today, parents who do not intervene when siblings are physically or emotionally abusing each other are deemed negligent. However, acts of sibling abuse tend to be underreported because there is a tendency for families to minimize, ignore, and dismiss the abuse as normal sibling rivalry. Furthermore, parents may blame the victim (“You must have done something to deserve it”)

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or respond inappropriately by physically punishing the perpetrator and/or the victim, thereby reinforcing violence.16 Sometimes, when I cried because of Beth’s abuse, my parents and other siblings interpreted me as being “too sensitive” or “a cry-baby.” My tears were perceived as a sign of weakness, not the result of ongoing traumatic abuse. Also important is that children who resort to bullying view it as a means to exert power, often in response to the fact that they, too, have been victimized by parents, an older sibling, or someone outside the family.17 The harsh whippings that Beth got from my parents and the fact that she was bullied at school might explain why she attacked me for being “the favored child,” as a way of releasing her anger. However, an explanation is not a justification for such abuse.18 Researchers also note that the aggression of the perpetrator is also a form of imitation that is reinforced by other violent family members, especially parents.19 My parents and other African American parents had no idea that what they considered “wise” and “god-fearing” discipline could promote generations of intimate violence in their children’s future relationships. Today, my hope is that African Americans are willing to learn how violent discipline can be more harmful than good. Like many victims of family violence, siblings are in either a dependent or an interdependent relationship and are unable to simply avoid or leave the perpetrator and abusive situation. It is not unusual for a younger, more dependent sibling to feel that she or he has no choice but to submit to intimidation and ridicule; in many cases sibling emotional abuse carries the threat of physical retaliation should the victim protest or disclose the maltreatment.20 Victims of sibling abuse like me are often exploited, humiliated, embarrassed, and emotionally hurt. Both victims and perpetrators of sibling abuse are at risk of being involved in other abusive relationships throughout life and often experience other forms of emotional maladjustment such as depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, apathy, confusion, and isolation. That explains why both Beth’s first marriage and my romantic relationships were peppered with violence. However, the explanation, in and of itself, did not take away the pain or help break the cycle of violence.21 In fact, when I read that victims of sibling abuse typically do not have other supportive relationships and may also have a history of being victimized by other family members or someone outside the family, I realized that my experiences were compounded by additional psychological abuse inflicted on me by my maternal aunt.

Alcohol Can Exacerbate Abuse Long before Fiona and during the time that Beth was physically and emotionally abusing me, I also became familiar with the indirect effects of drug and alcohol addiction. My aunt who lived with us would become verbally abusive,

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for the most part when she was under the influence of alcohol. She would berate me continuously, saying, “You think you’re so fine, I bet you think you’re cute and beautiful.” She would also accuse me of “trying to flirt with” or “take her man” or any man that would look my way. I find it hard to explain why I was singled out by her, particularly during my preteen years. I was only a child trying to understand my growing body and to adjust to how some men reacted inappropriately to it. It boggles my mind to think that my aunt imagined that I was interested in “taking” any fifty-plus-year-old man from her. Over the course of my childhood, I began to hate the smell of alcohol and thought that anybody who would drink and allow a drug to take control of their body and mind was weak and unsafe to be around. I knew my aunt was in pain, but once again, there was nothing I could do to take her pain away. I tried my best to avoid her and not to look too cute or sexy around her. However, my most familiar coping strategy for dealing with an abuser or potential abusers would be to work harder at being helpful to them. I figured that maybe my aunt wouldn’t hurt me physically or verbally if I helped her in ways that others weren’t helping her. Little did I know that my efforts to please my aunt and so many others would never be enough to take their pain away. I learned only much later in life that children of alcoholics or those who are raised with alcoholics often develop a variety of coping skills that allow them to survive in a household where one or more family members is addicted to drugs or alcohol.22 Behavior can range from “defying authority to suppressing their own needs and attending to the needs of other people; caretaking others’ needs is a continuation of how they responded to the addicted parent or family relative in childhood.”23 In the face of blatantly inappropriate information or actions by the addicted relative and other family members, the child learns that his or her own wants, needs, and safety are less important than supporting the family system.24 Thus, the term adult children of alcoholics describes people who grew up in homes where a parent or another relative was addicted to a particular substance. The parent or relative’s addicted behaviors distort the healthy development of the children in the household, resulting in adults (like me) who are often trapped in the fears and reactions of their childhood.25 Also, family interactions result in children who are often forced to become responsible adults without experiencing the healthy stages of childhood that result in well-adapted adults. Traumatic reactions to such family dynamics can result in what some professionals define as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a configuration of behaviors that include suppression of appropriate behaviors and inadvertent construction of severely maladaptive “survival behaviors.”26 Viewing PTSD as “a condition that represents the after-effect of unavoidable, inescapable, unpredictable abuse” is one way of understanding how adults who have been affected by family addiction and violence develop various maladaptive coping behaviors.27

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Clinical psychologist Douglas Ruben, director of the Adult Children of Alcoholics Research Center, concludes: “Childhood years of punishing experiences that induce fear responses leave an emotional scar of inhibition in early adulthood. The response deterioration rapidly permeates all segments of the person’s life, not only destroying opportunities for healthy recovery but also turning the punished person into a person who punishers others.”28 I hated people who abused others and vowed never to abuse anyone. Yet I learned over time that vows are easily broken if you lack the skills necessary to keep them.

Trading Places “Keith” After graduating from college and working for a few years in my home town, I surprised everyone—including myself—and accepted a job with a health advocacy organization nine hours away in another region of the country. My feminist education had begun in college after taking an African American studies course, called the Black Woman. The instructor and many of the students were African American feminists, and after that course I considered myself a feminist as well. I now looked forward to my new job because it was at a nonprofit agency that hired feminists. I knew I would meet many feminist mentors who would assist me in my political and personal growth as a Black feminist health advocate. My boyfriend at the time, Keith, drove me to my new home. When Keith left, I became extremely homesick. Even though he lived six hours away, I would call him to come to my new location just to drive me back to my hometown monthly, in order to see my family. But Keith had no car. I would either pick him up in his town or buy him a bus ticket to come to my town to drive me home. Keith also had no job, which was why he was available to respond to my every beck and call. Sometimes, Keith would stay with me for a few days. Although he asked me if he could live with me, I refused. He even threatened to commit suicide if I didn’t allow him to live with me, but I didn’t take him seriously. Despite this ongoing conflict, we had developed a routine where he would drop me off at work, then use my car during the day before returning to his hometown. One day I called him at my place to pick me up. No answer. I thought maybe he had actually tried to commit suicide this time, since he knew it was time for him to go back home. After an hour or so, I had a coworker drive me home. My car was there, but Keith had my house keys in addition to my car keys, so I could not get inside. I could see an inch inside my bedroom window and saw what appeared to be Keith’s body on the floor. Terrified, not knowing

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whether he was dead or alive, I started beating on the window and doors. While I thought to myself that I should call the police, my knocks and yells finally aroused him. Finally, he managed to get up and let me in the house. I was so grateful that he was alive and hadn’t tried to kill himself that I hugged him out of relief. Then, my interrogation began. What happened? Why was he on the floor? Had he taken some pills? He simply fell back on the floor and said, “Just let me sleep.” I smelled alcohol on his breath. I was beginning to panic because, no matter what I did, he wouldn’t get up or completely wake up. I checked the garbage for liquor bottles and saw nothing of the sort. Finally I checked the outside dumpster and saw that it was full of forty-ounce bottles of beer. Enraged and full of contempt for him, I thought about how this man had frightened me into believing he had taken an overdose, had forgotten about picking me up from work, did not care that I had no keys to get into the house, and had the nerve to be drunk, not dead or dying. I ran back into the house, determined to get him up. I began kicking him until he woke up and got up off the floor and begged me to stop. I concluded that Keith was an alcoholic and that I had been ignoring all the signs. The next day I bought him a one-way bus ticket home and tried to put as much distance between us as possible. I was ashamed of my own behavior and knew that I couldn’t justify how I had kicked him into consciousness. My behavior reminded me of my former abusers, who took their pain and rage out on me. Now I was taking my pain and rage out on someone weaker than me. The roles were reversed, and the alcoholic was the weak one this time, not me. I was amazed at the amount of rage that was simmering below the surface. Little did I know I had already traded places with my abusers. “Myrna” Several women on my new job were lesbians. I remember calling my mom after the first week at work, exclaiming, “Momma, I work with lesbians!” Nevertheless, my previous “homo shock” quickly dissipated when I was actually presented with the option of loving women in the same way I had loved men. Within the first year of my employment, I began to respond to the advances of a female friend, and we began a relationship that, in hindsight, I realize never should have occurred. Warning sign number one: Myrna was already in a lesbian relationship when she started flirting with me. Warning sign number two: before I realized it, I was on “lock-down” in my own home and wasn’t talking to or seeing anyone socially but her. Myrna would become upset when she didn’t know my whereabouts, or if I was out with other friends. I took this as a sign that she cared deeply for me. What I didn’t realize was that her jealousy was creating

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a systematic form of isolation in my life that was giving her too much control over me. After a while I couldn’t go anywhere without her, and if she could not contact me by phone she would play cruel mind games that centered around threatening to leave, physically harming me, or “outing” me to my family. Once, while I was in a car with her, Myrna played with a gun and threatened to shoot me and throw my body in a ditch. When Myrna’s control over me moved from psychological to physical battering, she blamed me for provoking her. She confessed once that she had been sexually abused as a child, so I felt sorry for her. I thought if I learned to love her better, she would learn to relax and trust my love. However, in reality, I had no control over Myrna and would never be able to love away her pain or stop her from wanting to cause me pain. Then, she began to see a third woman, and I became “the-other-other woman.” I finally let her go after about two months of psychologically and physically abusive drama. Before finally ending my relationship with Myrna, I briefly became romantically involved with another woman—only to find out she was an alcoholic. Once again, I thought that if I loved her enough she might stop drinking and inadvertently save me from the abusive relationship I was in with Myrna. She was in pain, and pain had obviously become a powerful aphrodisiac for me. One evening, Myrna caught me out with this other woman, and once we got to my place, she terrorized me emotionally and verbally for almost 12 hours. Getting rid of the new woman would also prove to be difficult. In addition to the fact that she was an alcoholic, she bullied me by threatening to call my job and “out” me as a lesbian if I did not continue seeing her. She also threatened to kill herself if I didn’t continue seeing her and would show up at my house unannounced, attempting to beat my door down. Toward the end of our brief relationship, we ended up physically fighting. She finally called my job and told the secretary that I was a lesbian and that she was my lover. I was extremely embarrassed by her calling my workplace and telling people I was gay. I remember hitting her that evening and feeling no respect for her in her drunken, pitiful condition. I was filled with such an intense rage that I actually scared myself. I knew deep in my gut that I wanted to destroy her. Thoughts of physically annihilating her scared me. After my experience with a woman lover who was an alcoholic, I vowed to stay away from alcoholics and drug addicts for good—male or female. Another vow made became another vow broken.

A Feminist Analysis of Lesbian Battering After my disappointment in relationships with women, I sought the help of a lesbian feminist therapist, who provided me with the words to describe my

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difficulties with intimate relationships. She explained how my family background contributed to my “inflated perception of responsibility,” “people-pleasing,” “caretaking,” and “enabling,” behaviors. These behaviors might have helped me to cope during childhood, but were currently creating several problems for me in adulthood.29 These childhood coping skills had outworn their usefulness and were currently sabotaging my efforts to establish healthy, intimate adult relationships. Equipped with a new language, a new perspective, and a related but new vocation, I left my former place of employment and began working for an organization that advocated against domestic violence. This particular organization had a lesbian antiviolence program. Lesbian battering is a sensitive topic in a society where many who have already been taught to dislike lesbians are eager to exploit any negative images of lesbians in the service of antilesbian hostility; yet if feminist lesbians do not address the topic, others outside of our community will, and they are less likely to do so in ways helpful to us. So I eagerly immersed myself in all the books and literature on lesbian battering I could find. During this period of my life I learned about sibling abuse as a form of family violence and that I was considered a “battered child” as a result of this abuse. I was especially surprised to read about the physical, emotional, and verbal abuse that characterized some lesbian relationships.30 I was starting to see myself—my past and my present—represented in this literature. I could see how, in my case, exposure to family violence can shape future abuse when no intervention has taken place. Lesbians, including feminist lesbians, can bring these patterns into their relationships—regardless of their political inclinations.31 Lesbian feminist philosopher Claudia Card writes: Those unfamiliar with the realities of lesbian battering may wonder what behavior is identified by lesbians as abusive or as instances of battering. Patterns include being thrown against walls, hit with and without weapons, choked, burned, stabbed, confined physically, and being robbed of sleep and necessary physical aids such as eyeglasses. Some patterns include violent property damage, threats with guns, threats to significant third parties, including animal companions, threats to reveal a partner’s lesbianism to homophobic employers and kin, economic control, humiliation, violent accusations, and character assassination. . . . Whatever the nature of the abuse, what sustained the naming of battering [italics in original] was not isolated incidents of hitting but ongoing patterns, often including a variety of abuses, which enabled the batterer to dominate the relationship. . . . In a battering relationship, fundamental mutual respect is absent.32

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Card and others note also that not all violent lesbian relationships are cut from the same cloth.33 Furthermore, many lesbians are reluctant to acknowledge themselves as battered because they are told by other lesbians, and even by some service providers, that they, too, are batterers since they verbally provoked assault, hit back, or engaged in other violent self-defense behavior. Battered lesbians do fight back, more so than women in heterosexual battering relationships, thus the concept of ‘mutual battering’ has been put forward in lesbian communities. That concept implies that lesbian partners are battering each other; it avoids fingering one party as the batterer and stigmatizing the other as submitting, suggesting instead that no one is a victim, that responsibility is mutual, and that what we have is “just fighting” between lovers.34 However, many feminists who have worked in shelters or as counselors argue that mutual battering is a myth and that the violence, particularly the dominant pattern, in lesbian relationships is rarely reciprocal.35 What appears to be mutual abuse is actually the victim’s efforts to secure her personal safety; in contrast, the aggressor/batterer often loudly asserts her victimization status, while displaying controlling and intrusive behavior in other areas of the relationship. Although the batterer may perceive herself as partially accountable for the violence, she seldom accepts full responsibility and often blames the victim for provoking it.36 Although feminist scholars and community advocates may disagree on the terminology of same-sex abuse, most share the belief that “battering is an unnecessary choice, that it is always wrong, and that batterers should be accountable for the harm they do.”37 I share these beliefs. I agree with feminists who suggest that in order for us to determine who, if anyone, is battered, we must look not only at specific actions but at patterns of behavior over time and their consequences for overall distributions of power and control in the relationship.38 This focus on relationship patterns has been helpful in my understanding of my history of battery as both victim and perpetrator. Batterers who were battered as children have often been in both roles—but not necessarily in the same relationship or during the same stage of their lives.39 My feminist, activist consciousness was reignited by this literature, and I gradually became committed to raising awareness about the problem of lesbian battering. I began to tell my story in self-help groups and feminist retreats, a little at a time. Other feminists began to invite me to speak to their organizations and to develop and conduct antiviolence trainings. I did a lot of work on homophobia in these training sessions and came to see the connection between my own internalized homophobia and my silence. The feminist literature in this area clearly explained how lesbian batterers use homophobic control as a method of psychological abuse. For example, an abuser may “out” her partner by revealing her lesbian activities to others, including relatives, employers, and property owners. This form of abuse can result in

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a battered victim being shunned by her family and the loss of a job or housing.40 Also, when the victim is closeted, she is less likely to report the abuse, for fear that it would expose her same-sex orientation. I remember thinking to myself, “How can I tell someone the woman I love is abusing me when I believe—as do so many others—that lesbian relationships are wrong in the first place?” Like so many people in LGBT communities, my own internalized homophobia led me to believe that I didn’t deserve help, because I should not be loving women in the first place. I used to think that only men were abusers, so I found it difficult to reconcile the fact that although I loved women, I had been hurt and abused by women—and women primarily—since I was a child. As I began to assert myself and speak out about lesbian battering to women, I also had to learn that one cannot simply look at a woman and know that she is an abuser. Not all batterers look “butch.” My lesbian abuser had been a foot shorter than me and half my weight. However, I also learned that when lesbian partners, like heterosexual partners, feel a need to share all recreational and social activities and express a need to do everything together, abuse is more likely to be part of the relationship—be it psychological or physical. Batterers and their partners have high dependency needs that often lead them to lose their sense of individuality.41 Sometimes I found it difficult sharing my story publicly as a formerly battered woman. I was learning to see myself as strong, creative, and powerful. I didn’t want people to see and remember me only as “some victim.” If they only saw me as a victim, I might be open to being further abused; I dreaded being classified as “weak” and couldn’t bear the thought of my newly claimed, predominantly White lesbian community as perceiving this Black woman as less than strong. Therefore, in training sessions, I simply mentioned facts that countered various myths, such as that the batterer must be larger or stronger than the victim and that batterers are more likely to come from certain ethnic groups or social classes. I found it easier to intellectually understand how the sociocultural context of racism, sexism, and homophobia contributes to partner abuse among African American lesbians than to admit how I was emotionally affected by this sociocultural context.42 My identity as a Black feminist lesbian woman has been strengthened and weakened by race, gender, sexual orientation, and class oppression in this society; and my relationship with Fiona revealed the best and the worst of these combined dynamic realities. “Fiona” An out-of-town friend called and asked me to connect with another friend of hers, Fiona, who had just moved to my city. When Fiona and I finally met, we became instant lovers. We met in May, and she moved in with me “temporarily”

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in July, since she was looking for work and had just moved to the city. I had never lived with any of my lovers and was terrified when Fiona finally moved in. I also noticed that Fiona was drinking quite a bit and that I was trying to match her drink for drink. Deep down I was very insecure, and drinking with her kept some of my insecurities at bay. Adding to this tension was the fact that Fiona was adamant in saying she didn’t want a committed relationship; I, on the contrary, was adamant about wanting one. One evening during a concert, we got separated amid the crowd and frenzy. At the end of the concert, I waited for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Worried, I was actually relieved when a scraggly-looking man came up to me and said that Fiona had asked him to find me and said that if he found me, I would give him money. My relief turned immediately into fear, but I was genuinely worried about Fiona, and she had my car keys. This strange man led me down a dark alley; all I could think about was that I might get raped or killed by him, but I had to trust him if I wanted to find Fiona. He led me to Fiona and my car. The car was not where we had left it at the start of the concert, and Fiona was in it, half passed out and covered in what smelled like vomit. The man told me she had been going in and out of consciousness for more than three hours. Shocked at the filth, I drove her home and helped her shower. Fiona vomited all night and was violently ill for 48 hours. However, within three days, she was drinking shots of tequila nonstop! I stopped buying liquor, stopped drinking myself, and told myself that my love for Fiona could get her to stop drinking and drugging. I helped Fiona find a job, thanks to contacts I had in the feminist community. However, Fiona having a job meant I couldn’t control her access to and choices around money. Despite the fact that she worked, she never seemed to have any money to help pay the bills. Her excuse at the time was that she needed to send money home to her 80-year-old mom. She also became more distant and started choosing friends who would drink and drug with her. I allowed her to use my car during the day, but after a certain period of time, she would show up late with the simple reply, “Don’t ask why I’m late; just be glad I’m here.” In some ways I was actually glad, because I worried that she had been hurt while driving drunk or high. Her erratic behavior continued until, one day, she finally confessed that she was back on crack and needed money to pay off the drug dealer. During this time, I had been traveling back to my home town because my father had become gravely ill. I assumed that the best way to handle things was simply to pay off the drug dealer and help her manage her money. I thought, if we pay him off, then I can reason with Fiona, and she will come back to her senses. Little did I know this was only the beginning of the nightmare and also the point where my violent behavior toward her began.

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Her Addiction, My Coaddiction Fiona and I are in the car, and I am slapping her. I am out of control, and I don’t know what to do. Who can I tell? My reputation as a big, powerful, Black woman-loving feminist and antiviolence advocate will not allow me to admit that I have a crack addict for a girlfriend and that I have slapped her repeatedly trying to get her off drugs. Who do I tell that I am afraid of Fiona when she is under the influence of drugs and alcohol? Most embarrassing, who do I tell that I am more afraid of myself than of her when she is high? This time I have become the batterer in a lesbian relationship. My shame consumed me and sent me retreating into myself. A vicious cycle began. Extremely isolated, I knew there was no excuse for my behavior, but I could not stop it. The message from one of my earlier readings on lesbian battering came to mind, when I was the one being battered: “People’s imperfections do not give their partners the right to discipline them with physical violence.”43 I repeatedly begged Fiona to get help, and one day, she called a drug treatment program. Together we spoke with a counselor. My shame was so heavy I could barely hold my head up. I felt as if everyone in the waiting room was whispering, “Crack addict, batterer, lesbians.” Fiona agreed to enter the 30-day evening treatment program. I agreed to enter the family support group. However, I kept quiet during these group sessions because I could not face my own homophobia—let alone anyone else’s in the group. I remember worrying whether I should pretend that Fiona was my sister, a cousin, or just a friend during the sessions. No one dared to ask if she was my lover, so I didn’t dare tell. My “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy got me nowhere during those 30 days. My relationship with Fiona became invisible during group sessions, and as a result, I became invisible and was not able to get the help I so desperately needed. I rationalized to myself later that it didn’t really matter, because Fiona relapsed less than a week after being released from the 30-day program. Fiona continued living in my home, and I allowed her to turn our bathroom into her crack den. She didn’t use drugs every day, and I quickly learned that her drug cycle was linked to her payroll cycle. I tried asking her to give me her check so that I could cash it for her and also pay the bills. She didn’t have a bank account, so that worked for a while. But having money, to Fiona, meant being able to buy drugs, so any cash she had after contributing to the bills was used for that purpose. I began to dread coming home from work and would sit outside my house, wondering which Fiona awaited me inside—the monster or the loving woman I had met before the nightmare began. Ironically, Fiona had a job at a battered women’s shelter that required her to work 12-hour night shifts. I would look forward to her work days so

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that I could have some peace and finally get some rest. However, her drug use escalated, and she began calling in sick. We would argue because I needed the time away from her, to let my guard down and to relax. One day she was getting high and didn’t want to go to work. I insisted that she go. I wanted her out of my house! She hid behind some clothes hanging in the laundry room and placed a stool between us as she tried to call in sick. I grabbed the stool and began shouting, prodding at her through the clothes where she was hiding. Each time I shouted, I swung the stool, when all of a sudden I heard a muffled cry and felt a thump. She came out from under the clothes holding her eye, yelling that I had hit her with the stool. By then, I was sobbing uncontrollably. After several moments of silence, she finally agreed to let me take her to work. When I went to pick her up the next morning, she came to the car with an unmistakable black eye and a look of reproach. Everyone at the shelter had seen it. Fiona had concocted some story about walking into a wall; as a feminist antiviolence activist, I was absolutely mortified that she had used that classic explanation, which fooled nobody. I was being “outed” as a batterer in the lesbian feminist community. My pain and shame were indescribable. My own words from an antiviolence training session came back to haunt me, “Alcohol, drugs, trauma histories and daily stress do not explain or excuse battering.” I pleaded with Fiona to get help for her drug use so we could both heal. I still could not separate my need to heal from her need to heal. My fear and rage were growing, to the point where I actually thought one of us might get seriously hurt or even killed. Fiona went into the day treatment program again and in 30 days was clean and sober. They recommended a residential program, but she was very reluctant, and so was I. I could not bear being separated from her for that long and was afraid that our relationship would fail if we didn’t remain in close contact. After the day treatment program, she relapsed within a month. Once again, I renewed my efforts to keep Fiona clean. I tried hiding the house keys so she couldn’t get out when her cravings for the drugs would hit. In desperation, she jumped out of our second-story window. Another time, she removed the screws on the door and took it off its hinges. Once I realized I couldn’t lock her in, I tried locking her out when she came home high. Then she broke the front window, pounding on it until I let her in. I felt like a prisoner inside my home. I was consumed by fear, and I told no one because I didn’t believe anyone could help me. I had gotten myself into this mess and figured I would have to get myself out of it. My contempt for her and my rage about the situation reached an all-time high. We argued relentlessly and viciously, almost daily. Once she even slapped me across the mouth, drawing blood. Letting her hit me also made me feel better, because I wasn’t the only one becoming violent when I could point to my physical wounds.44

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Once when she was high on crack, she began taking all my books out of my bookcase. We began pulling on the same book, and when I abruptly let it go, it struck her in the face. When I picked her up from work the next morning, she had two black eyes! One black eye and one flimsy excuse the two of us could get away with, but two black eyes and she was working at a women’s shelter meant that we could hide no longer. Questioned by her supervisor, she confided in her about her drug use and our violence as a couple. She was terminated on the spot for coming to the shelter under the influence. The shelter, ironically, seemed more concerned about her drug use than her physical abuse. Faced with such bleak possibilities, her unemployment, our exposure as lesbians engaged in intimate violence, and my incredible shame—I finally sought help for myself and an addicting cycle of violence I could not escape.

My Recovery I tried a 12-step program for people who have been affected by another person’s alcohol (or any other substance) abuse.45 These support groups were held in a gay clubhouse for people in the LGBT community, so I did not have to worry about other people’s homophobia. At the first meeting I simply cried. I spoke to no one, but I finally felt this might be the place where I could learn how to help my partner get better. After attending three or four meetings, I found out that the meetings were designed to help me get better! I learned that I was powerless over someone else’s drug and alcohol abuse and that my attempts to control that person resulted in my own life being out of control. This support group didn’t want to hear about Fiona’s drug use, nor were they interested in helping me brainstorm about the various ways to get her to stop. They wanted to hear about me—my sadness, my fear, my lack of safety, my abuse, my history, my life. They wanted me to be safe, and they wanted to support whatever healthy choices I made to feel safe. No one offered advice—only information about various resources, and only if I asked for that information. People’s experiences were similar to mine or worse. The isolation began to subside. Finally, I had somewhere I could go to heal. They taught me that the only person I could help and control was myself, not Fiona. Finally, I clearly knew what I had to do. After attending a number of meetings, I told Fiona she could no longer live with me if she wasn’t clean and sober, but most important, I could no longer live with myself if she wasn’t clean and sober. We had been living in a mixture of extremes for over a year; it was intensely hellish or intensely loving, leading to one big crash and burn. I knew that it was time for me to let her go. I had to trust that I deserved someone

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clean and emotionally present. I was ready to live with the real me and had the hope that the real her would show up again. Fiona agreed to go into residential treatment this time. We both thought it would be for 30 days, but the minimum commitment to enter was 120 days. I was relieved because I would have a reprieve for at least 120 days. I was terrified because I felt I would be losing my lover for four long months. What would I tell my friends? How could I come up with a lie for 120 days? Who would direct and control her life without me around? Only I loved her enough to decide what was best for her, right? Wrong. Fiona wasn’t allowed to talk to or see me for the first week of treatment. I panicked. Now that I had the time to take care of myself, all I could think about was Fiona. Finally, it began to seep in; I needed my own treatment plan. What was my recovery going to look like? I was numb for the first two months. I couldn’t think or do too much of anything. I told friends that Fiona was house sitting. Gradually, I began to accept invitations to socialize with friends who I had turned down for the last six months to a year. I also told one of my best friends the truth. I started reaching out and trusting my new support system in the 12-step program. My life had become very compartmentalized. My lesbian support group was mostly White women. My African American friends were mostly heterosexual, although a few were lesbian. However, I chose not to reveal the information about the violence or my 12-step program when I was with them. Who was I, and how could I be all of whom I was in one place? I’m still trying to figure this out. As one researcher puts it: “Having to live divided, compartmentalized, and invisible lives undoubtedly contributes to oppression, a factor that seems implicated in Black lesbian partner abuse.”46 Little wonder some Black women have asked, “Which me shall survive?”

Coming Home to Myself, One Day at a Time Fiona’s treatment program offered us the opportunity to attend couples counseling. At last, I began to reveal details of the horror/nightmare that we both had been living. We worked hard at our recovery, and I struggled daily to keep the focus on my own recovery, not Fiona’s. For years, I had focused on taking care of everyone else as a way to ensure my own safety. Other people got the attention, other people needed more love, other people had been more wounded and other people needed healing. I thought if other people got help, then I would be safe. My 12-step program forced me to look at how managing other people’s lives really harmed me as a child and was no longer working for me as an adult. My support group taught me that everyone was wounded

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by life, but that didn’t give anyone the right to wound me or me the right to wound them. Four months had passed and it was time for Fiona to come home. I was afraid and began to lose my focus. Would she relapse? What if her monster came back and resurrected mine? How recovered was she? But the real question was how recovered was I? I was only getting healed because she was gone and currently clean. My rage began simmering again beneath the surface. I also began to feel unsafe. I didn’t trust the concept of one day at a time. I wanted Fiona to sign a 30-day contract of sobriety, at the least! Once again, my fear engulfed me. Despite such fear, Fiona came home. To my surprise, the sober Fiona still loved me. I was amazed at how present she was and how I still loved, and even liked, this clean and sober Fiona. I still had resentments about certain things that had happened, but I decided to allow time and my own recovery to heal those wounds. I certainly knew that taking my rage out on her wouldn’t get me closer to my own healing. I didn’t trust her when she said she was going out for a drive or a walk. I sometimes checked her eyes when she got back and then I would relax when I saw that she was still clean. One day at time became my mantra. When Fiona celebrated her first anniversary of being clean, we rejoiced, but I was still scared. I kept going to my 12-step meetings, and sometimes the fear went away. I began to forgive her for bringing that nightmare into my life, and the pain and bad memories began to subside. I also began to forgive myself for the way I tried to handle it. I formalized a plan of recovery for myself. Attend feminist self-help sessions. Exercise, go to 12-step meetings, see a therapist. Admit that I have been abused and that I have been abusive. Get help. Ask for help, again. Develop a plan of action and work the plan of action. Keep the focus on me. I truly realize now that every day of fear that I live, worried about her relapsing, means that I am not taking care of myself. My partner and I are celebrating five years together, four years clean, and our recovery is celebrated and reached for one day at a time. Ache.47

Notes 1. Consistent with heterosexual literature in partner abuse, alcohol and drug consumption in same-sex relationships is associated with partner abuse. However, alcohol and drug abuse as being the cause of partner violence cannot be inferred. Substance abuse appears to be a way for some lesbians and gays to handle their feeling of dependency (which appears to be strongly related to partner abuse). Burke, L. K., and D. R. Follingstad, 1999, “Violence in Lesbian and Gay Relationships: Theory, Prevalence, and

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Correlational Factors,” Clinical Psychology Review 19: 487–512. 2. The heading for this section was taken from West, C., 2002, Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black and Blue (New York: Haworth). 3. Hines, D., and K. Malley-Morrison, 2005, Family Violence in the United States: Defining, Understanding, and Combating Abuse (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage); Richie, B., 1995, Compelled to Crime (New York: Routledge); Sokoloff, N. J., and C. Pratt, 2005, Domestic Violence at the Margins: Readings on Race, Class, Gender, and Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press); West, C., 2002 Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black and Blue (New York: Haworth); Garfield, G., 2005 Knowing What We Know: African American Women’s Experiences of Violence and Violation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press). 4. Wiehe, V., 1998, Understanding Family Violence (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage); Wiehe, V., 1997, Sibling Abuse (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage); Wiehe, V., 2002, What Parents Need to Know about Sibling Abuse: Breaking the Cycle of Violence (Springville, UT: Bonneville Books). 5. Kiselica, M., and M. Morrill-Richards, 2007, “Sibling Maltreatment: The Forgotten Abuse.” Journal of Counseling and Development 85: 149. 6. Wiehe, V., 2000, “Sibling Abuse,” in Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Resource Sourcebook, ed., H. Henderson (Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics), 409–92. 7. Whipple, E., and S. Finton, 1995, “Psychological Maltreatment by Siblings: An Unrecognized Form of Abuse,” Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 12: 135–46. 8. Hoffman, K., and J. Edwards, 2004, “An Integrated Theoretical Model of Sibling Violence and Abuse,” Journal of Family Violence 19: 185–200. 9. Wiehe 1997. 10. Hoffman and Edwards 2004, 187. 11. Ibid., 188. 12. Caffaro, J. V., and A. Conn-Caffaro, 1998, Sibling Abuse Trauma: Assessment and Intervention Strategies for Children, Families, and Adults (Binghampton, NY: Haworth); Greven, P., 1990, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Physical Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse (New York: Knopf); Straus, M., D. Sugarman, and J. Gilles-Sims, 1997, “Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 151: 761–67; Wiehe 1997. 13. Wiehe 1997. 14. Kiselica and Morrill-Richards 2007, 151. 15. Wiehe 1997. 16. Ibid., 419; Kiseleca and Morrill-Richards 2007, 151. 17. Patterson, G. R., 1992, Coercive Family Process (Eugene, OR: Castalia). 18. Whipple and Finton 1995. 19. Rosenthal, P., and M. B. Doherty, 1984., “Serious Sibling Abuse by Preschool Children,” Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 23: 186–190; Patterson 1982. 20. Hoffman and Edwards 2004, 186. 21. Kiselica and Morrill-Richards 2007. 22. Ruben, D. H., 2001, Treating Adult Children of Alcoholics: A Behavioral Approach (New York: Academic).

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23. Ibid., 9. 24. Ibid., 8. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 44, 51. 27. Ibid., 52. 28. Ibid., 51. 29. See chapter 3 for additional behavioral patterns, Ruben 2001, 67–121. 30. Kanuha, V., 1990, Compounding the Triple Jeopardy: Battering in Lesbian of Color Relationships (New York: Haworth); Lobel, K., ed., 1986, Naming the Violence: Speaking Out about Lesbian Battering (Seattle: Seal); Renzetti, C. M., 1992, Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships (Newbury Park, CA: Sage); White, E. C., 1994, “Lesbians and Abuse,” in Chain, Chain, Change: Black Women in Abusive Relationships (Seattle, WA: Seal), 75–84; West, C., 1998, “Leaving a Second Closet: Outing Partner Violence in Same-Sex Couples,” in Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Review of 20 Years of Research, ed. J. L. Jasinski and L. M. Williams (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), 163–83. 31. Card, C., 1995, “Horizontal Violence: Partner Battering and Lesbian Stalking,” in her Lesbian Choices (New York: Columbia University Press), 106–30; Kaschak, E., ed., 2002, Intimate Betrayal: Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships (Binghampton, NE: Haworth). 32. Ibid., 109–10. 33. See also Kaye/Kantrowitz, M., 1992, The Issue Is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance (San Francisco: Aunt Lute), 34–40. 34. Card 1995, 110. 35. Feminists who have supported the “mutual abuse” description of lesbian battering suggest that social norms of masculine entitlement and traditional feminine training put all women at risk for violence, and that the perpetuation of male dominance in society gives license to violence against women. Therefore, it is likely that lesbian couples do not experience the power differential that opposite-sex couples experience, and the abuse is deemed mutual (see Burke and Follingstad 1999 for a review). However, feminists who denounce “mutual abuse” as a myth point out that issues of power, control, and underlying insecurity appear common among batterers regardless of sexual orientation, and that some of the most severe forms of physical abuse among lesbians take place when power imbalances occur, such as that the batterer typically is employed, more independent financially, and makes most of the major decisions in the relationship. Thus, battering occurs in lesbian relationships when the abuser feels entitled to batter, and the level of abuse increases when the battered partner is unemployed. See also Renzetti 1992 and Robinson, A., 2002, “There’s a Stranger in This House: African American Lesbians and Domestic violence,” in Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue, ed. C. West (Binghamton, NY: Haworth), 125–32. 36. Robinson 2002, 130. 37. Card 1995, 108. 38. Ibid., 112. 39. Ibid.; Wiehe 1997. 40. Robinson 2002, 128. 41. Burke and Follingstad 1999, 505.

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42. Butler, L., 1999, “African American Lesbian Women Experiencing Partner Abuse,” in A Professional Guide to Understanding Gay and Lesbian Domestic Violence: Understanding Practice Interventions, ed. J. McClennen and J. Gunther, 181–205. 43. Nicarthy, G., 1986, Getting Free: A Handbook for Women in Abusive Relationships (Seattle: Seal). 44. Although feminists have been urged to reexamine the term mutual abuse, some feminists argue that in some cases, the roles of victim and perpetrator can be blurred, nonexistent, and fluid in same-sex relationships (see Kaye/Kantrowitz 1992). 45. See http://www.al-anonfamilygroups.org and http://www.adultchildren.org for additional information on these groups. 46. Butler 1999, 185. 47. Ache is a term used in African American rituals/libations that acknowledges the strength of African ancestors who are models for those of us who are still living.

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Part IV

Healing Practices

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Chapter 11

Resistance as Recovery Winning a Sexual Harassment Complaint

Carolyn M. West

Sexual harassment is defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as follows: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.1 Consider these statistics: in a sample of 100 Black women university students, 52% had experienced at least one sexually harassing act that was perpetrated by a professor during their academic careers.2 Approximately onethird of female graduate students had received sexual advances, overtures, or propositions that were initiated by a psychology educator, such as a course instructor, academic advisor, or clinical supervisor.3 These studies indicate that sexual harassment is a widespread, well-documented form of sexual exploitation on college campuses, and Black women and graduate students are among the many victims/survivors. The purpose of this chapter is to attach a name and story to these disembodied statistics. I am associate professor of psychology and the Bartley Dobb Profes-

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sor for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Washington. I write, train, consult, and lecture internationally on interpersonal violence and sexual assault, with a special focus on violence in the lives of African American women. But like the anonymous Black women and graduate students in the aforementioned studies, two decades ago, before I became Dr. West, I experienced sexual harassment while pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The details of the harassment that I endured from February 1987 until the summer of 1990 are laid out in the first section of this chapter. In the second section, I specify how my feminist beliefs enabled me to identify and craft a strategy to address the harassment. Finally, I explain how feminism helped me during my recovery process.

Sexual Harassment “You look uncomfortable. Perhaps you would be more comfortable lying on my desk.” It was September 1989, and I had reluctantly accepted Dr. O. as my clinical supervisor. According to him, I needed “extra supervision” to help me with a particularly difficult client whom I had been counseling. I was a new clinician and beginning to seriously doubt my decision to become a full-time therapist. Although I was apprehensive about the late afternoon meeting with Dr. O., he actually gave me some positive feedback. I felt encouraged. Then he began asking personal questions: “Are you dating anyone special?” “If you were going away for a special weekend, who would you take?” I responded to his interrogation with vague answers. To further add to my discomfort, his eyes seemed to linger a bit too long on my breasts. I pretended not to notice. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, that Dr. O. would engage in such inappropriate behavior with me. The “behavior,” which I did not label sexual harassment at the time, had begun several years earlier. In February 1987 I was a precocious, idealistic, 23-year-old graduate student who was fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a psychologist. It was an especially cold Midwestern winter, the perfect time for the annual “Tahiti Party,” which was the social event of the year. Graduate students and professors were expected to wear outlandish beach attire, perform skits, and dance. I had never been a big drinker, and I didn’t enjoy water sports, so I avoided the margaritas and the hot tub. Unfortunately, I was unable to avoid Dr. O.’s wandering hands and eyes. He danced a bit too close for my comfort, kept trying to adjust the straps on my costume, and continued to question me throughout the evening: “So, when are you leaving?” “Where is your car parked?” I left the party alone. Later, I heard the rumors. This was typical conduct for Dr. O. Apparently, each year he focused his “attentions” on a first-year female graduate student. I was not

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interested in being the “pick of the litter,” so I decided to steer clear of Dr. O. for the duration of my graduate studies. For the next several years, my efforts to avoid contact with Dr. O. were generally successful. However, there were a few incidents. In March 1987 he appeared to look down my blouse as I stood at a file cabinet. In May 1988 he stood uncomfortably close as he tried to decipher the message on my t-shirt. In October 1988 he inappropriately touched my “tummy,” as he called it, while I graded exams in my advisor’s office. In each case, I either pretended not to notice or ended the interaction as quickly as possible. In the spring of 1989, Dr. O. found me alone in my office. I immediately became tense when he arrived. There was a scheduling conflict, which meant that my request to be supervised by Dr. V. had been denied. How would I feel about accepting supervision from Dr. O.? There was a long, awkward silence. He began to stammer as he acknowledged that his conduct during the 1987 Tahiti Party had been inappropriate. Still, he promised to refrain from any future sexual advances. I had several thoughts after the interaction. First, I felt validated. He had admitted that his behavior was sexually invasive. Then, I felt invalidated. As the director of the clinic, Dr. O. ultimately made the final clinical supervision team assignments. It seemed that my feelings were inconsequential. If I wanted my degree, I would have to survive one year of supervision with him. I was hopeful. My sense of hope quickly dissipated as I began the fourth year of my doctoral training program. In addition to the “more comfortable on my desk” comment, there were more remarks about my attire and incidents of inappropriate, unnecessary touching. Some of the “jokes” were made in the presence of other graduate students during clinical supervision. For example, “How do you paralyze a woman from the waist down?” Punch line: “You marry her.” Generally, I have a good sense of humor, but I could not even muster a polite chuckle. At this point, I found his behavior to be insulting, demeaning, and offensive. I began to voice my concerns. Initially, I complained to other graduate students. In mid-May 1990 I told two female faculty members, one of whom was the director of clinical training, about Dr. O.’s unwelcome advances. I rejected their suggestions to attend a meeting and explain to him why his conduct was unacceptable. In protest, I refused to pay for summer supervision. Instead, I fled the academic puppy mill and flew to Europe. I danced at the Berlin Wall, which had fallen about six months prior to my arrival, shopped for leather handbags in Italy, entered a yodeling contest in Austria (I didn’t win), and ate chocolate in the Swiss Alps. For three glorious weeks, I felt free and safe. I had endured Dr. O.’s behavior since February 1987. Yet I had not complained to university officials until May 1990. Why did I wait so long before

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coming forward with my concerns? There were several reasons for my reluctance to report Dr. O. Like Black feminist scholar bell hooks, throughout graduate school I was told that “I did not have the proper demeanor of a graduate student.”4 As one professor put it: “I had an attitude problem.” That was true. I had respectfully challenged my professors’ authority, especially around cultural diversity issues, sexism, and the mistreatment of graduate students. Within the existing academic power structure, that was an unforgiveable offense. Consequently, I was justifiably afraid that Dr. O. and his powerful colleagues would end my career before it had begun by forcing me out of the doctoral program. I knew that I wasn’t his only victim. Still, I feared that my complaints would not be viewed as credible. Finally, I was deeply embarrassed. Although his advances were unwelcome, I wondered if I had inadvertently done something to encourage his behavior. So I kept quiet.

Resistance In addition to my strong faith, loving family, and supportive friends, my feminist beliefs gave me the courage to label my victimization, helped me to evolve into an empowered survivor, and enabled me to transform myself into an activist and scholar. More specifically, feminism helped me to name the sexual harassment and craft a strategy for resistance that involved using the legal system and media. Naming the Sexual Harassment Similar to the Black women college students who were surveyed by Mecca and Rubin in 1999, I did not initially identify Dr. O.’s behavior as sexual harassment. Then I began to eagerly devour the emerging literature on sexual harassment in academic settings. For example, after reading The Lecherous Professor,5 I began to understand the harasser’s personality traits, attitudes, and techniques. There was the “Father Figure” who attempted to form a mentorlike relationship with his victim. These men concealed their sexual intentions with pretenses of personal, professional, or academic attention. The “Opportunist” used the physical settings and circumstances such as private meetings to gain access to victims. Then there was the “Groper.” His eyes and hands would stray whenever the opportunity presented itself: in the stairway while chatting with the victim, while working late, while attending the office party. Suddenly, Dr. O.’s wandering hands and desire to meet at odd times for “extra supervision” began to make sense. Despite my newly acquired academic language, I continued to refer to him as a “Sexual Harass-hole pervert.” In addition, there were different types of sexual harassment. I recognized quid pro quo sexual harassment. Sometimes, it took the form of trading bet-

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ter grades for sexual favors, also referred to as “an ‘A’ for a lay.” Other forms of harassment were less blatant, but equally as harmful.6 Examples are gender harassment, which includes generalized sexist remarks, offensive jokes, or sexist teaching materials, and hostile environment, conduct that creates an intimidating or offensive work atmosphere. For me, Dr. O.’s joke about marrying a woman to paralyze her from the waist down created an unpleasant atmosphere in clinical supervision. It was especially difficult for me to report seduction, defined as sexual advances, unwanted sexual attention, or propositions, and sexual imposition, which involved unwanted touching and fondling. People seemed to be more skeptical about these forms of harassment. They asked questions such as, “Could you have misinterpreted his behavior?” This made me almost doubt my own reality. I also encountered a number of people who minimized this type of harassment. One female professor quipped, “Well, he didn’t rape you.” Fortunately, I had not been sexually assaulted. But feminism helped me understand that sexual harassment can occur on a continuum. Although I was not forcefully penetrated, my feelings of sexual violation and fear were still justified. Mainstream feminist scholars helped me to name my experiences as sexual harassment, but Black feminist scholars enabled me to understand its complexity. During graduate school, I had developed and taught a course on the psychology of Black women. I learned that living at the intersections of multiple forms of oppression, including racism, sexism, and classism, made Black women especially vulnerable to a type of sexual harassment that had distinct racial overtones, also known as racialized sexual harassment.7 Women from all ethnic backgrounds who complain about sexual harassment may be stereotyped as opportunistic mercenaries who are seeking financial compensation, scorned women who are attempting to derail an innocent man’s career, or simply delusional. In addition to these stereotypes, I felt haunted by the oversexed, promiscuous Black Jezebel image that is common in American culture.8 More specifically, I feared that university officials would assume that, just like my enslaved ancestors, I had sexually enticed my academic overseer. In that case, the myth went, there was no real damage done, since Black women are allegedly “unrapeable” and undeserving of protection.9 From time to time, I even wondered if Dr. O. believed that I would be more receptive to his advances because I was a Black woman. Crafting a Strategy for Resistance By the autumn semester of 1990, I could no longer endure the sexual harassment. So I told my mother, Ms. Georgia. When I think of my mother I am reminded of the words of Black feminist poet Kate Rushin and am proud to say that “I come from/a long line of/Uppity Irate Black Women.”10 To illustrate my mother’s character, after she discovered that the roof at my dilapidated

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elementary school was leaking so badly that children were in danger of drowning indoors, my mother went on a one-woman crusade to correct the injustice. She stormed into the office of the St. Louis Public Schools superintendent. Without an appointment, she demanded to speak to authorities. “Sorry, there is no money for school repairs” was an unacceptable response. Undeterred, my mother went across the street, found the nearest pay phone, and began calling television stations. The news crews met her at the school for an interview. Somehow, the money magically appeared, and the students at Mitchell Elementary School received a new roof. At the time, my mother did not see herself as a feminist activist. She was simply a concerned parent of an elementary school child. Now she was the concerned parent of a 26-year-old graduate student, and she was livid about Dr. O.’s conduct. “Mother’s love is at the heart of black resistance and emancipation,”11 so I incorporated some of her resistance strategies to deal with my situation. I also turned to the writings of my Black feminist foremother, Ida B. Wells-Barnett. On May 4, 1884, more than 70 years before Rosa Parks fueled the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a White man, 22-year-old Ida Wells refused to be moved. She had purchased a first-class train ticket, which entitled her to ride in the “Ladies” car. When a Tennessee conductor ordered her to move to the car reserved for smokers and Blacks, she protested and then physically resisted: He tried to drag me out of the seat, but that moment he caught hold of my arm, I fastened my teeth in the back of the hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn’t try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggage man and another to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out.12 Ida Wells left the train, minus the sleeves on her dress, which had been completely torn off. She hired an attorney, filed a lawsuit against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and was awarded $500 in compensation. The decision was reversed when the railroad company appealed to the State Supreme Court. Disappointed, she paid the court costs. But at least she had fought back. THE LEGAL SYSTEM Although not widely recognized, Black women brought forth many of the first legal cases used to define sexual harassment case law.13 In October 1991, like the rest of the country, I anxiously watched the televised Senate Judicial Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominee [now Justice] Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill, a law professor and his former employee, had accused him of sexually

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harassing her from 1981 to 1983.14 Thomas was ultimately confirmed. I went into mourning for a few weeks. The entire event was painful to watch, and I wondered if anyone would believe my story of sexual harassment. But the hearings had a long-lasting effect on the nation’s understanding of sexual harassment. Complaints filed with the EEOC increased by more than 50% between 1991 and 1992.15 I am proud to say that I filed one of those complaints. First, I tried to resolve the problem within the university judicial system. Dr. O. was seeking promotion from the rank of associate to full professor. In order to document my concerns, I wrote an anonymous letter to the Psychology Department on October 12, 1990. Several other students also had written letters of complaint, which were sent to the dean of Arts and Sciences. At that point, I contacted the dean and filed a grievance. Several days before Christmas, the grievance committee members ruled in my favor, and Dr. O. stepped down from his position as director of the clinic. University officials began to pester me to sign a statement indicating that I was happy with this resolution. I politely declined. Instead, my feminist friends in the Women’s Studies Department and campus Women’s Center took up a collection and contacted an attorney. Michael listened to my plight and agreed to take the case. In early January 1991, a few days after my 27th birthday, I filed charges with the EEOC and the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (MCHR). Four months later, I received a letter. They regretted to inform me that my “complaint was filed after 180 days from the date of the last act of alleged discrimination. This means, under the Missouri Human Rights Act your complaint was untimely.” So I contacted the EEOC and requested the Notice of Right to Sue, which was granted on September 20, 1991. My timing was perfect. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 provided for jury trials and increased damages in Title VII sexual harassment suits. The legal process was long, difficult, and emotionally draining. It left little time to focus on my research and teaching. In March 1992 I decided to resign from my job at the domestic violence shelter to focus on the lawsuit. I was required to complete interrogatories, which were long written statements about each harassing incident. The lawyers also requested my appointment books and personal notes about the case. I will never forget the depositions on August 21, 1992. For approximately seven hours, I sat with the university attorney, my attorney, and the court reporter. Every incident of sexual harassment was discussed. It felt like every aspect of my life was under investigation: Had I been in therapy? Was I a rape survivor? Was I a successful student? Was I credible or crazy? My soul was laid bare, but I had survived by “speaking truth to power.”16 I left with my head held high and didn’t cry until I got into my rusty 1977 Chevy Malibu. My attorney called on November 17, 1992. Finally, he had some good news. The University of Missouri had offered a settlement. After a long discussion,

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it made sense to accept the offer. The process had consumed my life and had left me emotionally exhausted and physically drained. I really needed to finish my degree and move on with my life. Because I was a poor graduate student who could not afford to pay my lawyer’s legal fees, he took a sizeable portion of the settlement. I went home, took some aspirin, and took a nap. Next, I decided to pursue the second phase of my legal strategy: file a complaint with the Missouri State Committee of Psychologists. This was another long process, which I had investigated in May 1991. After consulting with my lawyer, we decided to wait until the legal proceedings were completed. The official complaint was filed on December 18, 1991. On February 19, 1993, I made the two and one-half hour-drive to Jefferson City, the Missouri state capitol, for a 10 am meeting. Then I waited, and waited, and waited some more. On March 11, 1993, May 27, 1993, and February 16, 1994, I received letters from the committee. The report was always the same: “Dear Ms. West . . . No final decisions have been made at this time on this complaint as our investigation is continuing.” On June 20, 1995, the investigation was complete, and I received the final letter. At that point, I was no longer Ms. West. I had become Dr. West during the summer of 1994. The letter read: “Upon completing a thorough review, the committee has determined that there is insufficient evidence to establish that Dr. O. has violated the Psychology Practice Act. Therefore, the committee has agreed to close the file at this time.” I was profoundly disappointed. Again, I turned to the writings of my feminist foremother, Ida B. Wells. Although her lawsuit against the railroad had been overturned, her willingness to file the complaint was still heroic. Moreover, despite her successful antilynching campaign, the gruesome lynchings did not completely end. This led me to two conclusions. First, while the Missouri State Committee of Psychologists did not sanction Dr. O. for his conduct toward me, filing the complaint was an important act. Now, at least they knew. The harassment had been documented. Therefore, it was their responsibility to monitor his conduct with clients. Second, despite my best efforts, I could never completely end sexual harassment. Under the circumstance, I had done my best. Eventually, I made peace with the committee’s decision. After the case was closed, I lost track of what happened to Dr. O.’s academic career and clinical practice. However, he did not escape unscathed. ALERT

THE

MEDIA

My mother contacted the media, which drew attention to the racial and social class inequalities in the educational system. Actually, I never went looking for media attention. Somehow, reporters always found me. For example, a colleague had mentioned my complaint to James Brodie, a writer at Black Issues in Higher Education. After my interview appeared in the August 15, 1991, issue, Brodie

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contacted the Current, our campus newspaper. The student journalists were happy to write a story about my grievance, which was published on September 23, 1991. When the Anita Hill story broke, the local television station began trolling for victims to interview. Someone at the campus clinic gave my name to a reporter. It was uncomfortable to have a camera in my face, but I strolled around campus and discussed the sexual harassment case. University officials responded with, “No comment.” I thought the request for interviews would eventually die down. However, my contact with the media increased when an administrator at the University of Missouri-Columbia campus was accused of sexual harassment. One of my feminist colleagues contacted the city’s largest newspaper and informed them that sexual harassment was a serious problem at the St. Louis campus as well. Susan Thomson, a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, contacted me for an interview. For several hours, we talked and drank coffee. I tried to forget about the interview. The holidays were coming, and I needed to buy gifts. On December 13, 1991, a memo appeared in everyone’s school mailboxes. It was very brief: “This memo is to inform you that J. O. has resigned from the Psychology Faculty, effective May 31, 1992. He has been assigned to research duties for the remainder of his tenure here.” Wow, I thought, this situation is getting serious up in here! I didn’t realize how serious they would become until I crawled out of bed several days later. I was still working at the domestic violence shelter as an overnight staff person. I stumbled out onto the lawn, found the morning newspaper, and gasped at the headlines: “Professor Resigns under Fire: Two at UMSL Allege Sexual Harassment.” It was Tuesday, December 17, 1991, and the story was on the front page! Throughout the day, all the local television stations aired the story. My attorney decided that I should not give any more interviews until the case had been resolved. Of course, all my professors and student colleagues were following the media coverage. They had learned two disturbing facts from the St. Louis PostDispatch article: I had filed a lawsuit, and there were many more victims. Tenured professors are not typically dismissed or made to resign for making rude, lewd, or crude comments to graduate students. I was not being “too sensitive.” Dr. O.’s conduct was intolerable and unacceptable to me and the other “reasonable women” who were beginning to come forward. He had to be held accountable for his behavior, and the university officials needed to be held accountable for their failure to protect their students and employees. The atmosphere was especially tense that year at the annual department holiday party. That year, I felt like Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer who wasn’t allowed to join in the reindeer games. Still I held my head high, looked everyone in the eyes, and tried to be festive. On the way home, I cried in my rusty old car. As an emerging Black feminist activist, it was important for me to participate in these media interviews. Feminism had helped me to name the sexual harassment, and the media stories enabled me to publicly attach a name and a

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face to the victims. I had decided that I would no longer be ashamed of what happened to me. Instead, I would label Dr. O.’s conduct and the university’s nonresponsive attitude as shameful. Equally as important, talking to television and newspaper reporters empowered me and others to come forward. Gradually, other student victims emerged from the past. For years, L. S., my best graduate-school buddy, had endured Dr. O.’s inappropriate comments. Yet, we never shared our stories with each other. She declined to give her name to the reporters, but I appreciated her willingness to join me in the legal battle. After reading my name in the newspaper, one of Dr. O.’s former clients contacted me to share her story. Although she had moved on with her life and did not want to be publicly identified, she was willing to speak to the university officials and support me if the case went to court. Dr. O.’s conduct toward her had inspired me to file my complaint with the Missouri State Committee of Psychologists. I realized that many women had experienced far worse sexual harassment than I had. In fact, during the course of my investigation, the university officials uncovered cases that may have been felony sexual assaults. Perhaps this is why Dr. O. quickly resigned, and the university attorneys were so willing to settle the lawsuit. It still angers me that the “body count” had to get so high before the university officials were motivated to act.

Recovery When the legal action concluded, I was 29 years old and in my 7th year of an 8-year doctoral program. This meant that I had exactly one year to complete a predoctoral internship and dissertation. The director of clinical training expressed her doubts. While pursuing the lawsuit, and despite my fatigue, I had manage to survey almost 200 participants for my study on dating violence among low-income African American youths. Still, I had to code and analyze the data, write the results, and successfully defend the dissertation. How could I possibly accomplish that while successfully completing a joint-site predoctoral internship at the University of Notre Dame and Oaklawn Hospital? Performing my duties as a therapist would require more than 40 hours or more during the week. I began to panic. What if she was right? After all, few students had managed to complete both an internship and a dissertation in the same year. After having sued the university, I knew I would probably never be granted an extension to finish my degree. If I failed, I would be dismissed from the program without my doctoral degree. Undeterred, I sold the rusty 1977 Chevy and bought a shiny, new 1993 blue-green Saturn. I illegally parked my first

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new car, with personalized license plates that read “GO WEST,” in front of the psychology building. This annoyed some faculty members more than my new coffee mug that read, “I love my attitude problem.” In September, 1993, I moved to Notre Dame. When I arrived, I immediately explained my situation to my supervisors. We devised a plan. I worked with my clients during the week. On Friday night, I drove six hours back to St. Louis; on Saturday my wonderful, feminist advisors provided feedback on my dissertation, and on Sunday morning I drove six hours back to South Bend, Indiana. Although sleep deprived, I made it to work on Monday. When I finished the doctoral training program, in the summer of 1994, my friends, family members, and feminist allies had a huge party to celebrate. Less than a week after graduation, I moved to Illinois State University to complete a teaching and clinical postdoctoral fellowship in the student counseling center and Psychology Department. Of course, I told my supervisors about the lawsuit in Missouri. It was a good year, but in the fall of 1995 it was time to move on to a postdoctoral research fellowship in family violence at the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Laboratory. Two years later, I left New England and moved to the Pacific Northwest to accept a faculty position at the University of Washington. The road to emotional recovery was long and difficult. In addition to guilt, shame, depression, and self-blame, I had headaches, feelings of anxiety, and difficulty concentrating and sleeping. I was surly and irritable, which strained my personal relationships. There were times when it was a struggle to trust myself and my intellectual ability. Interestingly, when compared to their more traditional counterparts, sexually harassed Black feminist college women reported more psychological distress. Researchers have speculated that “double consciousness may be costly.”17 Put simply, as a Black feminist, I am keenly aware of how race, gender, and social class oppression influenced my experience with sexual harassment. This awareness made it more difficult to deny my feelings of depression. Nevertheless, I was lucky. My family and friends supported me through some difficult times. Dr. Peggy Wood, an excellent feminist therapist, was another invaluable resource. Gradually, I came to refer to myself as a “Healing Victor,” a woman who had been victimized but became a survivor and is now working toward healing. I found solace in quotes by Audre Lorde, a Black feminist, poet, activist, teacher, and warrior: “When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”18 “I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”19 Equally as important, “Your silence will not protect you.”20 When I finally told someone about the sexual harassment, I

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vowed to never stop telling. Perpetrators of all forms of violence, I had learned, relied on our silence, secrecy, and shame to further victimize us. My healing required me to continue to give interviews and lecture internationally on all forms of violence in the lives of women and children. Teaching, writing, and activism also helped me during my recovery process. Again, I drew on the strength of Ida B. Wells, my feminist foremother who used journalism and activism in the classroom as her weapons against racial bigotry and sexism. Like Ida, the “princess of the press,” I never stopped teaching women’s studies courses and writing about my experiences. With the help of my mentors and feminist friends, Drs. Suzanna Rose and Beverly Greene, I discovered my academic voice. I now consider it my life’s work to articulate how living at the intersections of multiple forms of oppression influences Black women’s experiences with the violence in their lives.21 Over the years, my participation in grassroots organizing has empowered me. For example, after professional boxer Mike Tyson was accused of sexually assaulting a beauty contestant, Dr. Aaronette White launched an antirape campaign to educate the African American community about sexual assault. Along with other Black feminist activists, I was proud to sign my name to an ad that challenged rape myths and stereotypes about Black survivors that appeared in the local Black newspaper.22 For more than 10 years I drove the 1993 Saturn. It was getting old and was held together by bubble gum and politically correct bumper stickers that read, “Uppity Women Unite” and “Call the Pierce County Domestic Violence Helpline.” On the rear windshield were a rainbow flag and pink triangle, which symbolized my commitment to being a heterosexual ally to all the lesbians and gay men who had fought the good fight with me for the liberation of all oppressed people. Not surprisingly, the old Saturn was keyed and vandalized several times. Maybe someone disliked my politics? Once again, I had made myself a moving target. Although I wanted a vehicle that was more reliable and reflected my new status as an associate professor, it was somewhat sad to leave the Saturn at the dealership. It was the last tangible thing that linked me to graduate school, since I had purchased it with the settlement from the lawsuit. I gathered my personal items from the trunk, said my goodbyes, thanked little “GO WEST” for her faithful service, and drove away in my new Lexus. I thought to myself, with the clarity afforded by feminist analysis and the support gathered through feminist alliances, I and my “attitude” had won my complaint, mobilized other women, and enabled me and other women to recover from the outrage of sexual harassment. After driving about two blocks, I turned around and raced back to the dealership. I had forgotten my old license plate frame. It read: “Black Feminist Diva”!

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Notes 1. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 1980. “Guidelines and Discrimination Because of Sex” (Sec. 1604.11), Federal register 45: 746676–77. 2. Mecca, S., and L. J. Rubin, 1999, “Definitional Research on African American Students and Sexual Harassment,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 23: 813–17. 3. Glaser, R. D., and J. S. Thorpe, 1986, “Unethical Intimacy: A Survey of Sexual Contact and Advances between Psychology Educators and Female Graduate Students,” American Psychologist 41: 43–51. 4. hooks, b., 1989, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (Boston: South End), 58. 5. Dziech, B. W., and L. Weiner. 1990. The Lecherous Professor: Sexual Harassment on College Campus (Champaign: University of Illinois Press). 6. Fitzgerald, L., N. Shullman, M. Gailey, J. Richards, Y. Swecker, M. Gold, M. Ormerod, and L. Weitzman, 1988, “The Incidence and Dimensions of Sexual Harassment in Academia and the Workplace,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 32: 152–75. 7. Buchanan, N., and A. J. Ormerod, 2002, “Racialized Sexual Harassment in the Lives of African American Women,” in Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue, ed. C. M. West (Binghamton, NY: Haworth), 107–24. 8. West, C. M., 2008, “Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and Their Homegirls: Developing an ‘Oppositional Gaze’ Toward the Images of Black Women,” in Lectures on the Psychology of Women (4th ed.), ed. J. C. Chrisler, C. Golden, and P. D. Rozee (New York: McGraw-Hill), 287–99. 9. See Aishah Simmons’s documentary. http://www.notherapedocumentary. org. 10. Cited in O’Reilly, A., 2000, “I Come from a Long Line of Uppity Irate Black Women: African American Feminist Thought on Motherhood, the Motherline, and the Mother-Daughter Relationship,” in Mothers and Daughters: Connections, Empowerment, and Transformation, ed. A. O’Reilly and S. Abbey (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 143–59. 11. Ibid., 151. 12. Cited in Schiff, K. G., 2007, Lightening the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America (New York: Miramax Books), 2. 13. Baker, C. N., 2004, “Race, Class, and Sexual Harassment in the 1970s,” Feminist Studies 30: 7–27. 14. Hill, A. F., 1997, Speaking Truth to Power (New York: Doubleday). 15. Ibid., 291. 16. Hill 1997. 17. Rederstoff, J. C., N. T. Buchanan, and I. H. Settles, 2007, “The Moderating Roles of Race and Gender-Role Attitudes in the Relationship between Sexual Harassment and Psychological Well-Being,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 31: 50–61. 18. Lorde, A., 1997, The Cancer Journals (San Francisco: Aunt Lute). 19. Lorde, A., 1984, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” in her Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, CA: Crossing).

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20. Ibid., 41. 21. See http://www.DrCarolynWest.com. 22. White, A. M., 1999, “Talking Feminist, Talking Black: Micromobilization Processes in a Collective Protest against Rape,” Gender & Society 13: 77–100.

Chapter 12

Learning to Love the Little Black Boy in Me Breaking Family Silences, Ending Shame

Gary L. Lemons

Over the past decade, the question of domestic violence against women—including black women—has emerged as a major concern in the fight against women’s oppression. This is a controversial subject because, unlike other aspects of the subjugation of black women that target racism and economic exploitation, the burgeoning problem of battered women at first appears as an individual problem: a man beating a woman. Too many blacks still think this is a divisive issue that should not be aired in public. However, the problem of battered women is a social phenomenon, not an individual one, and combating this expression of social malaise must be approached with as much vigor as those rooted in the vagaries of a racial and class society. —Beth Richie, “Battered Black Women” The results of woman-hating in the Black community are tragedies which diminish all black people. These acts must be seen in the context of a systematic devaluation of Black women within this society. It is within this context that we become approved and acceptable targets for Black male rage. . . . This abuse is no longer acceptable to Black women in the male of solidarity, nor of Black liberation. Any dialogue between Black women and Black men must begin there, no matter where it ends. —Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

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In this chapter, I confront my own internalized wounds of male supremacist thinking rooted in the personal experience of patriarchal violence. I am a childhood survivor of domestic violence. Owning these words publicly is about openly acknowledging my fear of breaking silence about how deeply wounding the experience of patriarchal violence can be, not only for women (particularly in a domestic context), who are most often its direct targets, but also for children witnessing it. Telling my story of survival marks the end of years of silence and secret shame. Openly writing about my childhood experience of family abuse in this chapter represents a personal journey of inner healing initiated by my exposure to black feminist thought. First and foremost, the black feminist critique of the wounding effects of patriarchal abuse in black communities opened my eyes to the fact that my experience of it was not unique. Second, black feminist critical focus on domestic violence and its impact upon the lives of black women and children provided me language to construct my own path toward a vision of feminist male self-recovery. This chapter demonstrates the transforming power of and healing agency of black feminists in the self-recovery process I began more than 15 years ago—writing a dissertation on feminism’s impact on black men. I had no idea, at the time, that that writing process would lead to this one revealing my struggle to overcome the damaging effects of internalized self-loathing as a black male. Neither did I fully comprehend while writing the doctoral thesis that it was, even then, a crucial element in my becoming a self-proclaimed feminist black man. The emancipatory writings of black feminists I read while in graduate school at New York University enabled me to break free from the bondage of silence, shame, and self-hatred that had severely undermined my self-worth and lack of self-esteem rooted in childhood.

Who Will Cry for the Little Black Boy (in Me)? During my routine Sunday afternoon newspaper reading time, I am struck by one particular front-page headline of the New Jersey Star-Ledger (August 17, 2003). It reads in bold letters: “Anguish over Two Stolen Lives.” To my surprise and ensuing sadness, the article and accompanying photographs cover the funeral service for two young black women. One is the daughter of celebrated poet Amiri Baraka. Her sister’s estranged husband had shot both women to death. The photographs dramatically capture the outward display of black male pain. In the larger of the two color photos, Baraka’s son Ras (deputy mayor of Newark) is shown stooped over with one hand covering his face (as if the grief is too much to bear) having earlier eulogized his sister. The smaller picture below depicts the other victim’s young son. Embraced by a woman identified in the caption as his grandmother, with eyes averted from the camera, he, too, outwardly sheds tears for the loss of his mother. Together the pictures illustrate

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the force of excruciating sadness that domestic violence works upon its surviving victims—for the living remembering the dead. Questioning the senseless murder of his sister and her friend, according to the newspaper article, Ras Baraka exclaimed during the eulogy: “Can anybody explain why this happened? Has anyone seen my baby sister? He killed my baby sister. My God, he killed my baby sister.” A family friend, Sonia Sanchez read a poem at the funeral denouncing black male violence against women: “[B]rothers, stop killing the sisters. Don’t you know the difference between human and animal behavior?” When “dawg” (the slang expression for “dog”) is a popular term of endearment among young black men, is there any wonder why inhumanity toward females in our communities continues to be such a marketable commodity in gangsta/misogynistic rap and why so many young black males die early deaths? One Saturday evening in 2003, I saw the movie Antwone Fisher. It evoked in me strong memories of childhood abandonment I was not prepared to handle in the theater, on what had been an otherwise light-hearted evening with my wife and friends. Deep, hidden away childhood feelings gripped me with such a searing inner pain that only the expression of tears could relieve. In the darkened theater, no one saw my tears. In one particularly moving scene in the movie between Fisher (the perennially angry young black male title character) and the military psychologist (played by Denzel Washington) assigned him (due to his repeated outbursts of violent aggression toward his shipmates), they meet each other’s eyes in a moment of kindred (father/son?) recognition. In the psychologist’s office, Antwone Fisher recites a poem about his childhood memories of being orphaned at birth.1 The poem set off a floodgate of tears bursting forth from a deep wounded place within me. I was that little boy in the poem. Beth Richie addresses black resistance to dealing with domestic abuse publicly. For many blacks, doing so represents a communal breach—airing our dirty laundry. There is, however, a high price we pay for keeping secret family abuse. Our silence, a most dangerous form of complicity, protects the abuser. Is racial loyalty worth the price of a black woman’s life or death struggle (often fatal) against her partner (most often—a husband, a boyfriend)? What happens in the mind of a child witnessing a mother’s abuse at the hands of a violently angry father? What is the emotional, psychological, and/or physical price a child pays in a home where domestic violence is a constant feature of family life? Why can’t she tell? Why is it a secret? Will she pay if the secret gets out? What if he kills her? What will become of me? These questions hover over my narrative like vultures zeroing in on the carcass of a recently dead animal. I will tell . . . bell hooks’ writing on the critical role of liberatory education in the development of healthy self-esteem maintains in Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem:

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Gary L. Lemons Education as the practice of freedom has never been available to any significant body of black folks. Learning how to be a conscious critical thinker places any individual in an outsider position in a culture of domination that rewards conformity [emphasis added]. In the contemporary world black identities are diverse and complex; consequently we need a variety of educational settings to make education for critical consciousness the norm. More antiracist progressive teachers, of any race, are needed if schools and colleges are to participate in the holistic self-recovery of black folks and affirm the reality that is possible to achieve healthy self-esteem within the existing culture of domination.2

In all the varied ways, in the course of my life growing up as a “black boy outsider,” I always come back to that feeling of abandonment. When I have felt most connected to and disconnected from black men, there always already exists the fear that they will abandon me like my father. While my father never left our family physically, emotionally during the years of his abusive behavior at home, I felt abandoned by him. Feelings of childhood abandonment connected to my father lie at the heart of much of my emotional insecurity and self-esteem as an adult male. Feelings of inner helplessness, stored up shame, and guilt—turned into anger, turned into rage, turned into depression, turned into the urge to continually self-destruct. In posttraumatic domestic violence recovery, recognizing that I brought all my feelings of abandonment into my marriage more than 20 years ago, it is clear to me that there could be no meaningful recovery without my partner’s persistent call for rigorous honesty in our relationship, especially around self-identity issues for me. Fear of becoming the abusive man my father was for so many years kept me locked within the cycle of silent inner abuse (for years) that I feared one day would outwardly manifest itself—causing the end of my marriage. Without a soul-searching form of self-inventory that critically examines the relationships among patriarchy, (hetero)sexism, and misogyny (male diseases that fuel the root causes of domestic violence), male survivors of childhood family violence cannot hope to break the cycle of abuse. Denying one’s feelings of selfwoundedness experienced as a child will only continue to subvert the possibility that we can have healthy physical, emotional, and spiritual relationships with women, children, and other men in our lives. As this chapter relates (toward ridding myself of internalized battering), through some heavy-duty soul-searching work in private and group therapy, I am only now able to articulate what happened to me growing up in a home of domestic violence. Male feminist self-recovery in resistance to violence against women requires that I maintain an active engagement in antisexist men’s groups—as a leader and participant. It means that the feminist-antiracist agenda I set forth in and outside the class-

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room must critically oppose (hetero)sexism as well as homophobia. Moreover, my spiritual practice as a gender-progressive minister must also reflect my stand against domestic violence and misogyny. Working with men of color in a substance abuse recovery ministry, I am (more often than not) confronted by walls of silence and denial issues of female abuse, particularly in the context of domestic relations.

“There Is NO Excuse for Domestic Violence” Above my desk, penned to the wall, in my small basement office space at home, there is a black and blue bumper sticker that reads in white letters: “There Is NO excuse for Domestic Violence.” Every time I sit down at my desk, I stare at these words. There is NO excuse, but it happens anyway—to many women everywhere, every minute, every hour of the day. One of my best women friends, Linda Rohrer Paige, a professor at Georgia Southern University (in Statesboro, Georgia) gave me the sticker. On her office door, she has posted the same one. For many years at Georgia Southern, she has led a vigorous campaign against domestic violence. Next to the sticker on her door is a newspaper picture of a battered white woman. Several years ago, Linda invited me to campus to present a paper. The week I arrived in Statesboro, a former student of Linda (a young white mother of two young sons) was being tried for the murder of her husband. While in town, I attended two days of the woman’s trial. I met her sons, during a recess. The smaller of the two asked me if I played basketball (probably because of my 6’4” height). Linda introduced me to her parents, an older white couple. The father introduced himself to me as “Evangelist ———.” I introduced myself to him as a minister and a teacher. He and I pleasantly exchange cards. “What am I doing here?” I asked myself standing outside the courtroom (the only black person, surrounded by a crowd of white people) at a murder trial of a white woman. I uttered the words above only in the silence of my mind telling me that this was all a dream. That I am not in a courtroom (one of two black people, the other the bailiff, a black man); not among a crowd of bloodthirsty, angry white men and women; not witnessing the trial of a battered white woman accused of murdering her husband (revered as a “good ole boy”) in a small southern town. On the last day of the trial, during the closing arguments, a dramatic turn of events occured. The prosecutor called to the stand a young black man, in his late teens, who had just been brought into the courtroom. Upon asking the witness if he was acquainted with the defendant, the prosecutor accused the young black man of having been sexually involved with her, citing this as the primary reason she killed her husband (to be with her black lover).

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Admitting his guilt, as a young black male in a sexual relation to a (married) white woman, was enough (in and of itself) for the all white jury to find her guilty of murder—whether or not she had been a victim of domestic violence. I kept thinking about the white woman’s sons. What did they think of their mother, their father, the young black man who had entered their lives? What would become of them? Would they become batterers of women? Never having personally witnessed a trial on domestic violence, the experience left me full of thoughts—not only about the dramatic play of its race and gender politics but also about memories I had long suppressed regarding family violence in my life. Remembering its occurrences through the houses where we lived, I chart the geographical path of its existence over space and time from age 6 to 16, the year before I left home for college. Revisiting the trauma of that turbulent time in my family represents an important step toward accepting myself as a man raised in homes were violence ruled. Growing up, I never heard the phrase domestic violence even though it was taking place all around me. Nobody ever asked me what went on in our house (though certain relatives had to know), and I never told anyone. It was a secret. It was an awful, shameful, sad, painful secret. When it came to my father’s repeated, physically brutal attacks against my mother (during the ten years of its occurrence), we lived in houses of secrets. We kept the truth hidden like a prized possession. The first time it happened . . .

Geographies of Violence, Mapping Family Abuse across Place and Time Out of nowhere he comes home from work angry. He reaches the porch yelling and screaming at the woman inside—yelling that she is his wife, he can do with her what he wants. They do not understand what is happening. He is pushing, hitting, telling her to shut up. She is pleading—crying. He does not want to hear, to listen. They catch his angry words in their hands like lightning bugs—store them in a jar to sort them out later. . . . Yelling, screaming, hitting: they stare at the red blood that trickles through the crying mouth. They cannot believe this pleading, crying woman, this woman who does not fight, is the same person they know. She wants the woman to know that she is not alone. She wants to bear witness. —bell hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood

Yelling, screaming, hitting; yelling screaming, hitting; pushing, hitting; shut up, hitting, hitting—the red blood that trickles through the crying mouth (and nose). She is the pleading woman, the woman crying, the woman who does not fight (back). I do not understand what is happening, but I must bear witness.

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I must be present to witness the unspeakable, to name it, to call it out. I will no longer be silent. I will tell . . . Like hooks, I remember a mother crying, her screams, the blood, the accusations, things crashing, the sound of a fist meeting skin (even now my own thoughts of rage consume me). I will not stop the words from coming forth, the pictures long ago stored away in my mind, the horrifying images of a battered woman, a mother. I, too, bear personal witness. There is no “first time,” no initial moment, no place to point to that was the beginning of it all. In a boy’s mind, it seemed to happen all the time. Never knowing when it would happen but being very sure that it would—from house to house and time and time again. Witnessing my father hitting my mother is about multiple memories of fear, about shards of broken scenes, about acts of a father’s tormenting violence spread over days, months, years, over a decade, a montage of screams, tears, bloodied noses, and blackened eyes. During those years when his abusive behavior followed us each time we moved from one house to another, from “downtown” to “uptown” and back again in the town where we lived, it was always accompanied by alcohol, his coming home late each evening, staying away from home on the weekends, arguments about his indiscretions with other women. And there was always his anger to deal with, the rage that preceded the hitting. What demon lurked inside of you? What made you do it? What force inside you made you hit her, always so brutally (more often than not in the presence of your children)? Did you ever wonder how we (your sons who came to fear your presence and the sound of your voice) felt as we witnessed you violating her voice, her body, her presence—every time you commanded her to hush, punched her, choked her, slapped her? Were you trying to teach us something about male power? But you were our father. . . . You were also our enemy. Whatever demons were driving you, you unleashed them upon us—in your abuse of her. They belittled her, publicly and privately humiliated her, marked her as the target of all that you could not accept in yourself. Did you love her during those years you hit her with so much consideration for the force of the blows against her face, eyes, head, and any unpredictable place where a blow might land? I could not help either of you—oppressor and oppressed caught up in a cycle of anger, screams, crying, and hitting, always hitting everywhere we moved, from house to house, one time or another, always violence. During those years when violence in the houses where we lived resided like a favorite guest, I remember bits and pieces of life with and without my father. I remember evening during the week when he would enter the front door usually accompanied by the smell of liquor on his breath. I remember Saturday afternoons of solitary play as a six year old longing for his presence; years of Saturday nights fraught with paralyzing fear and anticipation, wondering whether this Saturday night she would come home with a bloody nose,

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a new dress ripped—the result of his jealous rage. For a decade, I watched, almost always through hysterical eyes her nearly always failed attempts to defend herself against the force of his presence (and absence). It was a shattered childhood laid bare—memories once (and still) so painful that to recall them (even now) brings forth a floodgate of tears. But men don’t cry. I still can hear her screams, her crying. I still remember feeling the gut-wrenching fear of maternal loss, that my brother and I would be left motherless, abandoned to a father who would willfully end the life of the one who birthed us. What would happen to us? A child should never have to experience his mother being beaten—to death, to a thing to be thrown away, discarded. And men don’t cry? It is difficult to comprehend the enormous weight of time in the mind of a child enduring the agonizing fear of living in houses where family violence exists as a constant feature of daily life, an ever-present threat. Would it happen this time or that time? Would the next second, minute, the next hour begin with the end of her life tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year? I was always thinking about her death—not by some dreaded disease or by a terrible car crash, but by his clinched fists or his strong hand positioned tightly around her neck, ever tightening until the last breath was squeezed out of her throat. I feared him from the age of six. When I was six, I mostly remember him not being at home, Mom and I being at home on Saturdays together alone, without food. We lived on Mooney St. in a nondescript house at the top of the hill. I especially remember one late, gray-cloudy Saturday afternoon playing out back of the house. Hungry, I went in to ask mother for something to eat. She offered me a bowl of oatmeal. It was all we had. Where was my father—off somewhere again? Who knew where to find him? From the time I was six until I was nine, he was a shadowy figure. Perhaps this is why today I am so sensitive about having enough food to eat, why I used to secretly gorge, hide food. In many of my childhood memories I don’t remember him. We never did anything together as father and son. As a child, I did not think of him as my father but rather as the man in my life that caused me pain. When I was nine, however, my father’s presence seemed particularly ominous. This was a time when it seemed some of the worst violence occurred. Like the destructive force of a tornado or a hurricane his presence when he was full of liquor would move through the house destroying everything in sight. At nine, I witnessed the force of the destructive power of “baby Fred” (as he self-identified himself to his friends). Roughly for the next five years, his presence wreaked utter havoc in the houses where we lived. I lived in constant fear of the next time he choked, punched, or slapped “Jean” as he called my mother (her middle name), often with disdain or disgust for something she had (or had not) done.

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When I was nine, we moved into a newly built house uptown near the end of a cul-de-sac on Muscadine, at the foot of one of the town’s majestic pine tree–covered mountains. I loved climbing that mountain, though I never reached the top of it before we moved downtown (several years later) away from its awesome presence. I remember that during summer days, the intoxicating smell of pinesap would fill my nostrils, luring me up into woods. The woods became a sanctuary. Away from home, alone among the towering pines, I experienced safety and peace. I now realize it was my daily travel to the mountain that saved me from the heart-wrenching pain of a child witnessing domestic violence. The mountain became a place of escape. That mountain was the place where God lived, and God would save me from my father. I remember vividly one Friday night when mother appeared at the front door of the house—bloody, clothes torn, with a split in her forehead. How did that happen? The force of the blow to her face must have been horrendous. There were also gunshots being fired in the pitch black outside our house that night. My mother’s brothers came to the house with lethal intentions to save her. My father would pay. Who would die that night? For a traumatized 10 year old looking upon the body of his battered mother, the calculated revenge of angry uncles was a terrifyingly welcomed response to a father gone mad. No one died that night, but the wound above my mother’s eyes, in the center of her forehead, left a scar that remains today. Now when looking at it (only visible to those who know where to find it, namely me), I know a part of me died that fateful Friday night along with the belief that “Daddy” would protect me from evil in the world. On another night (when my parents came to pick up my brother and me from my cousins’ house downtown), suddenly without warning, before we could get into the car, my father started hitting my mother. As he was hitting her with unbelievable force, as if her were fighting another man equally as strong, I remember screaming out, demanding that he stop. How could he do this to our mother? It was an act of unbelievable cruelty. I came to relish his time away from home in those days—never home on the weekends, always out with his drinking buddies, always drinking, always drunk. Even during the weekdays, he was always out with them, finally coming home late after having been somewhere drinking—especially on Friday nights. There would be trouble when the weekend came. Many times it wasn’t just the violent rage of the beatings of my mother I witnessed; it was the way he treated me. Surely, he must have hated me. What did I represent for him? I remember him telling my mother and me that we were not to eat any of the food he had bought that Friday night. Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been had I had the opportunity to be with other boys—to play basketball or other sports without

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the fear of leaving the house. Though I could not protect her, I could be there to witness. It seemed (except when I was at school or church) I was always at home, always there to witness. Leaving home meant leaving my mother to suffer alone. At 12, when we moved downtown to Crescent Street, I remember seeing my mother in the hours before dawn go to the back door of the house to wait for him with a butcher knife in her hand. It had snowed earlier that night. Entering the door, as he passed her in the dark, she drove the butcher knife into his upper shoulder. In the dark, all I could hear was verbal violence mixed with groans of pain. Had she killed him? Maybe in his drunkenness, he really didn’t even feel the pain. All I know is that no one was rushed to the hospital; no stitches were applied to the long, deep gash in my father’s shoulder. Years later a very visible keloid remained there to remind us of that terrifying night. When we moved from Crescent to Ivy, one block over, I was 15. One time there, I witnessed my father choking mother in such a manner and with such force that I knew he would choke the life out of her. She did not die then; it would be the next time. But she did fight back, When I saw her stab my father in the darkness on Crescent St., it reminded me of those awful years uptown when she had not fought back. This time she did fight back, and I was glad. When we moved from Ivy to Jackson, across town, I was 16 (entering my junior year in high school), and my father’s drinking and the physical abuse continued. Whether domestic violence continued in the house on Jackson after I left for my first year of college at 17, I don’t know. If it did, no one at home ever spoke about it, not even my brother. It was at the beginning of my college years that my father started going to church with my mother. My father’s conversion to Pentecostalism would mark the beginning of the end of family abuse in our house, as I had known it the years before. My father got “saved”—converted, from an unadmitted alcoholic wife beater with a cigarette habit to a churchgoing, self-avowed, serious Christian practitioner. He would eventually become an ordained minister and soon thereafter a pastor of a small church around the corner from our house on Jackson. When my father died of lung cancer in 1997, he died a changed man. Whatever demons from his past possessed him from the time he left home (on the streets since age 13), he had conquered. When he died hundreds of people came from all over to pay their last respects, for he was known as a good man, a friend, a hard worker, a pastor, a man of God. The ministers who eulogized him spoke about his love, compassion, and care for those he knew. Everyone loved him—blacks and whites. There were few places in our town where his name was not known. So, by the end of his life, he had become all that God wanted him to be, and I loved him, and she, my mother, loved him, his faithful and dutiful wife for more than 40 years.

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I remember the places and times that mark a different kind of man, one who was loving, particularly toward his friends and extended family, one who worked hard as a ditch digger for the town’s water company for many years, and one who was known for his good looks (very dark skin and muscular body) and the stylish clothes he wore. Mapping the places of domestic violence in my life over the span of a tenyear period, I realize for each of us in my family (having survived that deadly toxic period of our lives), we found ways to deal with it. But the “church” (both as a physical and a spiritual place) functioned as a source of healing, for my parents, my brother, and me. It “saved” my father and us from the inner demons that had tormented him and us for years. As long as I can remember, my mother has been a believer in the Pentecostal faith. Through my mother’s persistent influence, my father, who had embraced Catholicism as a young child, converted to Pentecostalism. Her faith, she still reminds me, brought her through a troubled marriage to my father and for many years allowed her to be the sole moral guide for my younger brother and myself. While she never admitted it, a very real reason she endured my father’s abuse during those troubled years was that my mother had no independent means of support. She had had no formal education beyond the 11th grade and had never lived on her own. Thus, typical of battered women, she believed remaining in an abusive relationship with a man was her only option. My mother never left my father at any time during the ten-year period. She never reported any of the incidences of abuse to the police. Over the years, however, the trauma of domestic violence left my brother and me emotionally and verbally paralyzed, unable to share with each other its devastating impact upon our lives as children or as adult survivors. We had no language to express our fear, our pain, our shame, our anger. Why had our mother chosen to stay with my father? Not until reaching adulthood did I ask my mother this question. Mother telling me she stayed with him because of my brother and me hardly mediated the agonizing pain of her ten years of silence. Apart from all the other complex emotions my brother and I kept bottled up inside of us, even as adults, her answer left me with deep, unresolved feelings about the sacrifices she had made for us. My feelings were fraught with emotional contradictions of guilt and anger. On the one hand, what a selfless, all-giving mother she had been to risk her life for the welfare of her children. On the other, how could she jeopardize her own life or her children’s at the hands of my father whose violent rage could have resulted in her death and/or ours, had we ever attempted to stop him? Even years after the abuse ended, my brother and I still suffered emotionally from internalized feelings of shame associated with domestic violence survival. Neither my mother’s faith nor my father’s spiritual conversion could wash away the memory of the small scar my mother bears on her forehead

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today, a permanent sign of the skin-splitting blow to the face she sustained long ago in an encounter with one of my father’s powerful fists. Before feminism, it was the church, my brother reminded me recently, that kept either of us from becoming the violent man our father was before his spiritual conversion. Even so, my brother and I agree that we still bear psychic and emotional scares from our childhood. When my brother and I revisit the years of family abuse we endured, neither of us remembers anyone from my father’s family intervening on our behalf. There were times when we both felt like outsiders in it. My mother told us for years that she felt like an outsider in his family. I wonder to what degree it had to do with her being “light” skinned, marrying into a family of dark-skinned siblings. My father, as earlier stated, was a dark-skinned black man. While he never admitted it, I think he was attracted to my mother because of her skin color. “Colorism” (the preference for light skin, a feature of internalized white supremacy in people of color) is common in black communities. I believe family members on my father’s side held being light skinned against her. In fact, some times I have wondered whether they allowed my father’s abuse of her to go on precisely because they resented her skin color. While neither my brother nor I ever told anyone about the abuse in our home, we knew for a fact our father’s sisters and brothers knew about his violent behavior. Over the years, they witnessed it. Did any of them ever wonder what the violence was doing to my brother and me emotionally? They said we were sissies, punks because we were quiet and mild-mannered. I will never forget that when I was nine or ten years old, one of my father’s sisters chided me for being “timid.” She said it to make fun of me in front of her daughters. Did my aunt or her other sisters and brothers not know the psychological toll their brother’s violence was having on us? Why I seemed so withdrawn from grade school through high school? Why I had no desire to do “boy” things? Why, growing up, I stayed at home so much? To this day, deep within, I harbor resentment for the ways they made my brother and me feel like family outsiders and failed to acknowledge the signs of our abuse. As adult men, in the last five years, my brother and I began sharing our pain with each other, looking back at our family circumstance. We talk with amazement about the odds against our having survived the abuse. We also talk about the pervasiveness of domestic violence within a larger familial context. We also have learned that some of our father’s sisters were victims of spousal abuse. Many of the children in their families, cousins we grew up with—both female and male—did not survive as we have. Many of them are drug and alcohol addicted, suffering from their own deeply emotionally and psychologically tortured childhoods. Ending the silence about my abusive past first came when I was a graduate student at NYU when I entered the feminist classroom of Professor Rena Grant (a radical young white woman trained at Yale, born in Scotland). Her

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class on contemporary feminism introduced me to the work of bell hooks. It was my first course in feminism. One of two males in the class, the other a white male much younger than myself, in a room of more than 50 white women, I read hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center with particular interest. Here was a self-proclaimed black woman feminist writing about feminism as a liberatory location for men to understand sexism. Not only that, in chapter 5, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” she challenged men to enter the struggle against female oppression, maintaining that we were also victims of “patriarchy,” a term I had grown up connecting with male figures in the Bible. More important, hooks’ analysis of patriarchy and sexism helped me to comprehend the ideology of women’s subjugation in a culture of male supremacy. For the first time in my life, feelings of helplessness that had surrounded my inability to make sense of my mother’s plight had given way to a powerful feeling of knowing. In my mind, what had seemingly been my mother’s choice to stay with an abusive husband was in actuality a complex situation tied up in issues much larger than one woman’s individual experience. What hooks helped me understand, in ways I could not have before, is that violence against women is about an institutionalized and systemic devaluation of all women and womanhood. Moreover, her belief that “[a]s long as men are brainwashed to equate violent abuse of women with privilege, they will have no understanding of the damage done to themselves, or the damage they do to others, and no motivation to change.”3 This incisive analysis of gender oppression made me realize that my father’s actions against my mother—while unacceptable on any ground—were comprehendible in feminist terms. bell hooks formulates a critique of sexism that exposes it as a dehumanizing perversion of black manhood and masculinity. Her work helped me understand that domestic violence is an insidious form of male supremacist behavior that reflects a system of patriarchy that promotes male battering of women. The work of hooks and that of other black feminists (among them Audre Lorde) significantly influenced my understanding of sexism and misogyny in black communities in two strategic ways: (1) to analyze critically my own experience as a black male domestic violence survivor and (2) to challenge black men in my life to break the bonds of sexist and misogynist thinking and behavior. Living a life committed to profeminist spiritual, social, and political transformation in black life means actively challenging black men and myself to resist the traps of male supremacist behavior and misogyny.

“One Oppression Does Not Justify Another” As black women and men, we cannot hope to begin dialogue by denying the oppressive nature of male privilege. And if Black males choose to assume that privilege for whatever reason—raping, brutalizing, and killing Black

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Gary L. Lemons women—then ignoring these acts of Black male oppression within our communities can only serve our destroyers. One oppression does not justify another [emphasis added]. —Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches I, like most Black men I know, have spent much of my life living in fear: fear of white racism, fear of the circumstances that gave birth to me, fear of walking out my door wondering what humiliation will be mine today. Fear of Black women—of their mouths, of their bodies, of their attitudes, of their hurts, of their fear of us Black men. —Kevin Powell, Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?

In Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde argues among others in the essay “Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface,” “It is for Black men to speak up and tell us why and how their manhood is so threatened that Black women should be the prime targets of their justifiable rage.”4 Like Alice Walker, Lorde does not view the feminist project of black women in gender-divided terms: “We recognize the fallacy of separatist solutions” (61). Principally as a response to black sociologist Robert Staple’s inflammatory article in the March/April 1979 issue of The Black Scholar, Lorde calls black men to account for our misguided and wrongheaded attacks against black women. Rather than brutalize black women as our enemies, we need to redirect our “justifiable rage” toward institutionalization of “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (in the words of bell hooks). Rightly so, Lorde calls for black men to take responsibility for ways we feel wounded by racial, gender, and economic injustice. Moreover, she emphatically contends that our emotional welfare is not the responsibility of black women in our lives. We must begin to dialogue with each other about what ails us. Relying on black women to care for our emotional burdens is not a complement to their “enduring strength” but a totalizing, sexist signifier of the myth of the “strong black woman.” Insistently, Lorde maintains that a cross-gender, dialogic process must be engaged between black men opening up to each other about the psychic and emotional wounds we bear—“Black men’s feelings of cancellation, their grievances, and their fear of vulnerability must be talked about, but not by Black women when it is (at our) expense” (61). Until we, black men, allow ourselves to be vulnerable with each other sharing progressive, anti-sexist survival strategies—cannot hope to convince the women in our lives that we are serious about a vision of black liberation struggle if we are not actively engaged in the process of liberating ourselves from white supremacist, hetero-masculinist, homophobic notions of our manhood.

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As stated in the introduction, for two years, I cofacilitated a churchsponsored addiction recovery program for men and women. Not only does the program serve persons in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse but also individuals dealing with domestic violence (either as victims or perpetrators), incest, depression, and over-eating, among others. The program works on the belief that recovery from any form of addiction requires spiritual self-transformation. Through weekly group meetings, employing the 12-step principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, we share our recovery process. One of the core tenants of the process is the factual evidence that “one addiction feeds another.” Based on accounts of recovering addicts, one’s struggle to overcome drug addiction, for example, is linked to another form of dependency. Leading men’s groups, I found that while males in them were successfully recovering from one form of substance addiction or another, many of them held onto their addiction to abusing women in their lives. In other words, men could celebrate “clean time” (no longer actively addicted to drugs and alcohol), while remaining bound to sexist and misogynist behavior. For many of them, this was not a problem. This is precisely what Audre Lorde succinctly argues in the statement: “One oppression does not justify another.” In my men’s recovery group, listening to the gut-wrenching stories of men in substance abuse was always painful. My heart ached for them and their struggle to stay clean. Sometimes I openly wept as I listened, unable to fight back the tears. Sometimes they wept for me. Our collective weeping was good, utward tears, symbolizing an inner washing. Perhaps, we were also weeping for the long silences between us for the wounds we had inflicted upon each other—for fathers and sons who had lost each other. Like Antwone Fisher, I ask, too: “Who will weep for the little boy” (in each of us)? I must weep for the little black boy in me who still yearns for a father’s love and protection. On Wednesday nights, in our recovery meeting, women and men gathered to learn about the nature of our addictions. Confronting and overcoming our addictions and addictive behaviors and sharing our struggles “to stay clean” were the reasons we came together—to be as honest as possible with each other (and ourselves) as we recovered. Personally, recovering from years of depression rooted in childhood abuse meant getting in touch with that past in ways such that its power over me was neutralized. This is a life’s work. This was a way to end the silence, to disrupt the cycle of seemingly endless bouts of depression, the never telling, for fear of public exposure. Working the 4th step helped me to know that the personal sacrifice of sharing my past of family abuse publicly was far more valuable in my recovery process than the higher mental, emotional, and spiritual toll it cost to keep it a secret. In recovery—the more rigorously I search within, the more openly and honestly I shared, the more I allowed myself to embrace the process of self-healing. Outward

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weeping during “sharing” (individual disclosure time) in the meeting—by either a member of the group or as a result of listening to someone’s story—is as a sign of solidarity, an empathetic gesture of personal connection. As in “(Girl/Man) I can relate to your pain.” In moments when we laid the wounds of our life bare for everyone to see (and hear), collective tears became a critical agent in the struggle for recovery—making the process of us putting the bits and pieces of our lives together again a collective effort. We were connected to each other’s struggle through the belief that inner healing is about understanding the place of divine intervention in our lives. In group meetings, we said sometimes the recovery process “happens quickly; other times slowly.” As black men in white supremacist capitalist culture, our sense of “brotherhood” is stuck in the racist image of us as an ever-present “menace to (white) society.” Many of us rather than being responsible for creating a truly liberated, nonsexist vision of black male self-determination instead internalized racist, misogynist representations of us. More than ever, our common ties as black males were knotted around a totally capitalist, hypersexualized commodification of our masculinity—represented as spectacle in the entertainment industries of sports and hip-hop. In popular culture today, the essentialization of black manhood and masculinity in the form of gangsta imagery is a money-maker for any black male willing to work on the plantation of white supremacist capitalist homophobic patriarchy, as bell hooks has asserted. I maintain that the truth of our being black and male—in a nation that continues to deny our humanity—is about our repressing a lot of pain, anger, and inner woundedness to cope. It is not our inner hurt that we show. Rather the badge of our manhood, the shield of our masculinity is a hardcore exterior of self-denial—that we hurt at all. Some of us are full of unacknowledged (self-) anger, rage—of pain locked away behind years of silence about internalized hurts. “It is,” as Audre Lorde said, “[time] for Black men to speak up and tell us why and how [our] manhood is so threatened that Black women should be the prime targets of [our] justifiable rage. . . . Black men themselves must examine and articulate [our] own desires and positions and stand by the conclusions thereof” (60–62). Profeminist black men have taken the lead in black male conversations about domestic violence in our communities and its impact upon lives. Kevin Powell is among the leaders of the dialogue with his book Who’s Gonna Take the Weight: Manhood, Race, and Power in America (2003).5 In a slender volume, Powell shares his thoughts about the huge personal weight he feels as a young black man in the United States struggling for meaning in his life beyond the death grip of black machismo. Writing in the hip-hop style that has become the signature of the speech, clothing, and attitudes of Generation X, he places his life history on the line in this book. Composed of three pithy essays, it captures the mind-set of a young black man caught up in the spectacle of hip-hop culture. As a memoir of gender, race, and power driven by white supremacist capitalist greed in the music industry, it is the story of the rise, fall,

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and redemption of a talented black male “hip-hopper in exile” (64). The essay that unabashedly demonstrates the transforming power of black feminism in a man’s life is “Confessions of a Recovering Misogynist.” It underscores the need for men working to become gender progressive in our thinking and actions to admit when we fall short. Narratively, Powell introduces us into the life of a black male sexist in the making with a memory of childhood indelibly marked by the absence of his father. From there, he recalls its imprint as a formidably signifying force in the misogynist development of his ideas about black women. His experiences as a misogynist college student exemplify all the negative ways females are made to serve (hetero) masculinist fantasies of manhood power. In his words today, as a popular antisexist lecturer on college campuses, he says, “[C]ollege is simply a place where we men, irrespective of race or class, can—and do—act out the sexist attitudes entrenched since boyhood. Rape, infidelity, girlfriend beat-downs, and emotional abuse are common, and pimpdom reigns supreme” (58). According to Powell, he changed his womanizing ways when “my ex-girlfriend stepped up her game and spoke back to me. . . . My world said women were inferior, that they must at all costs be put in their place, and my instant reaction was to do that. When it was over, I found myself dripping with sweat, staring at her back as she ran barefoot out of the apartment” (61). In his own words, it took—“raising my hand to my girl friend, and . . . two other ugly and hateful moments in college, one where I hit a female student in the head with a stapler during the course of an argument, and the other where I got into a punchthrowing exchange with a female student I had sexed then discarded like an old pair of shoes” (67)—to understand the dehumanizing impact of misogyny on the women in his life and himself. Deeply guilt-ridden and remorseful, after entering therapy, reading black feminist critiques of male violence, on-going dialogues with feminist women, and much soul-searching reflection on his relationship with his mother, other women (in and absent from him life), and men (in and absent from his life, especially the absence of his father), Powell determined he had to transform: “I struggled to understand terms like patriarchy, misogyny, gender oppression” (62). On the incident with his exgirlfriend, a year later, he would write about it for Essence magazine. Admitting that he remains in struggle to overcome the sexist in him, Powell continues to write and speak about his commitment to ending sexist and misogynist violence against women. I appreciate his work as a recovering sexist.

“Saving” Ourselves:” The Feminist Work Black Men Must Do Black males who refuse categorization are rare, for the price of visibility in the contemporary world of white supremacy is that black male identity

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While writing the earlier section about my memory of childhood domestic violence, I felt a visceral kinship with bell hooks after reading her narrative of family abuse in the memoir Bone Black. Her willingness to share openly the traumatizing impact of her father’s abusive behavior toward her mother is precisely why I chose to open my narrative with lines from it. Amazed by the power of hooks’s telling, it invoked in me agonizing memories of my past. Like hooks and her siblings, I stored images of the violent father deep in the recesses of my mind. The images of my father as a violent man followed me into adulthood. Through the heart-wrenching lines of her story, I reentered the trauma of my own. Remembering times my father struck my mother was like having to remember the first time I almost drowned, struggling helplessly without the benefit of knowing how to swim with no one around to rescue me—feelings of death, dying helplessly with no one to save me. I realized that breaking silence about domestic violence in my family was the first step toward ending the shame associated with it. This was the work I had to do to begin my recovery. While publicly breaking family silence about family abuse issues has been personally liberating, allowing me to arrest the emotionally self-deprecating demons of my past, being openly vulnerable continues to be difficult. I have come to know in recovery that male (self-) transformation—toward breaking the cycle of internalized sexism and misogyny—is not the work of women. As much as my wife loves me, she cannot save me from myself. No matter how many public lectures I give or articles and/or books I desire to write on being a profeminist black man—until I deal with deeply rooted issues of black male self-esteem that keep me bound in heteronormative, sexist, homophobic masculinity—I will not transform. Without remaining actively involved in recovery, feelings of worthlessness, self-hatred, and low self-esteem (intertwined with years of rage and anger toward my father’s abusive behavior and feelings of utter helplessness in the face of it) would continue to sabotage my desire to break free of the self-destructive hold of black machismo. As an adult male, feelings of manhood failure torturously haunted me until I began to understand

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masculinity, manhood, and the abuse of male power from a feminist standpoint. Writing about the need for black men to transform, elsewhere I have written about the necessity of a critique of racism and black male liberation that does not collude in the perpetuation of black female oppression. All Black men need to understand that antiracist strategies which uphold sexist, patriarchal dictates of Black empowerment doom themselves to fail, for they ignore the historical centrality of Black women in the movement for racial justice. Louis Farrakhan’s call for Black men to “atone” for not having owned up to a patriarchal version of manhood (to be respected as men” falsely leads many of us to believe our manhood resides in the power to dominate women. Womanist Black men reject masculinist thinking rooted in the idea of male superiority. Without acknowledging the ways Black men can oppress women and be racially oppressed simultaneously, Farrakhan refuses an analysis of white supremacy that would expose the relationship of power between racial and sexual domination.6 Even as I began confronting feelings of low self-esteem from the past, feeling as if salt was being poured into an open wound, I knew no woman in my life should have to shoulder my pain. The vision of black women propping up racially wounded black men is inherently flawed, mired in the myth of the strong black woman. I recognized that black male self-recovery in a culture of white supremacy is hopeless without its linkage to spiritual inner transformation. Uncovering the excruciating pain of the recovery work I had to do as a child survivor of domestic violence left me feeling exposed, as if completely naked, open for the entire world to see my wounds (translate “weaknesses”). But this was and continues to be the work that I must do. To transform I must be vulnerable, not only breaking family silences about black male misogynist abuse, but black manhood silence about ways heteromasculinist and homophobic notions of our identity as men hurt, wound, undermine our relationships with each other and with women and children in our lives. On an intellectual level, having studied feminist critiques of patriarchy and sexism for almost 20 years, I understand domestic violence. On an emotional level, however, for years, shame, guilt, and embarrassment kept me from confronting ways I had internalized them and their effects upon my marriage and, relationships with other women and men in general. I have never physically abused my partner of nearly 25 years. For a man who has identified as a profeminist for 20 years of marriage, it completely shocked me when Fan, my partner, recently revealed that my silence (refusal to dialogue with her) when we disagree is a form of (psychological) violence against her. At first, my response was denial. How could she say this when my life with her has been about resisting (rather successfully in

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my mind, I thought) abusive male behavior? What she made me understand is that silence, shutting down, refusing to talk (to engage her in mutual dialogue) when we disagree is as painful for her as if I had struck her. For years, silence was the only way I knew how to deal with marital conflict. I would never hit my partner and abhorred men who abused women. It did not take long for me to understand Fan’s interpretation of my behavior as a passive form of aggression, for it was the exact same strategy I employed growing up to show my father how much his abusive actions really hurt me and our family. Coming from a family where physical violence was nearly always the means by which conflict was dealt with between my parents, I learned that the best way to control my temper was simple—be silent. This is how I responded to conflict in my marriage. Justifying my behavior, I reasoned that silence was not the same as physical aggression. After my father had physically attacked mother, weeks, months would pass before I would even utter one word to him. The absence of words spoke very loudly and clearly what my thoughts were about him. While resistance to his behavior never manifested itself in physical retaliation from my brother or me, I experienced power in refusing to talk. He could not (nor did he ever) force me to speak to him. I used silenced against him, to hurt him, to make him feel disregarded, unloved, worthless, erased from my consciousness. My wife told me these were the exact feelings she experienced when I used silence against her. My shutting down hurt Fan, and I knew it. Being a profeminist man is about more than a self-proclamation, much more than an acceptance of women’s equality. What I now know from Fan’s critique of my behavior toward her is that silence can be, and is, a weapon of abuse. Even as a self-proclaimed feminist man, I can use it against my partner to devalue her opinions and feelings, a way to simply tune her out. Having learned that domestic violence can manifest itself in varying ways—and that I have been a perpetrator of domestic violence in my own marriage—shattered the self-righteous image of myself I held as an exceptional male model of antisexism. Being committed to the feminist struggle against sexism and misogyny as a black man means being critically conscious of the traps of male supremacy, on a daily basis. Like Kevin Powell, I am in active antisexist recovery through personal and group therapy to understand the root causes of my sexist ways. My partner has never left me. We have never been separated except for those times when she goes away for extended periods to work professionally teaching acting or as an actor. Mostly likely, if asked, Fan would say that I am a good husband, father, lover, and spiritual partner. She would also say that being married to a “feminist black man” is about having to continually remind him of the integral relationship between theory and practice, that his practice does not always line up with the feminist principles he espouses—even when he is relentlessly defending them.

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For black men who are childhood survivors of domestic violence, silence about the psychic and emotional wounds many of us have buried deep within is killing us and the women and children in our lives. Are the sacrifices we invest in the reification of black machismo worth our humanity? The patriarchal vision of manhood many of us have endorsed, as espoused by Louis Farrakhan in the form of new black manhood nationalism, is not the answer for our liberation as men. We have become lovers of things more than ourselves. How can we freely and fully love the women in our lives, when we cannot express our love for each other and our own selves? We survived the holocaust of slavery in mind and body, but for many of us, our spirits suffered near fatal attack, though the black church would have us believe otherwise. What price our humanity? The humanity of the women and girls in our lives that we would choose a form of life-threatening manhood power over the lives of our “sisters?” In black churches, the words to the traditional gospel song “We Will Understand It Better by and By” speak to the unfolding truth about the human struggle transformed by the power of divine intervention. The song’s theme of hope is articulated in the following words: “We will tell the story of how we’ve overcome.” In recovery meetings, individual “sharing” produces a critical space for vulnerability where telling the story represents a collective triumph over adversity. Everybody in my family was “saved” from the destructive power of domestic violence—including my father. Yet it was understanding feminism as a critical tool against domestic violence that enabled me to lay bare my mother’s story as a battered woman, that became a necessary, albeit deeply painful, step toward my own self-healing. In telling my story as a survivor of domestic violence, I have ended years of secrecy, years of shame, years of silence. I have begun to love myself in different, radically black—profeminist, spiritual terms. I have transformed my past as a “black boy outsider” into a strategic location of empowerment as an adult having become a “professor” of feminism in and outside the classroom.

Notes 1. Fisher, A., 2003, Who Will Cry for the Little Boy? (New York: HarperCollins). 2. hooks, b., 2003, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem (New York: Atria Books), 92. 3. hooks, b., 1984, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End), 76. 4. Lorde, A., 1984, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, CA: Crossing), 60. Further references to this work are cited in the text. 5. Powell, K., 2003, Who’s Gonna Take the Weight? Manhood, Race, and Power in America (New York: Three Rivers), 61.

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6. Lemons, G. L., 2001, “When and Where [We] Enter: In Search of a Feminist Forefather—Reclaiming the Womanist Legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois,” in Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, ed. R. Byrd and B. Guy-Sheftall (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 82–83.

Chapter 13

I Took Back My Dignity Surviving and Thriving after Incest

Carolyn E. Gross

At a bed and breakfast nestled below the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, I sat quietly with other women at a spiritual retreat, listening to one woman’s testimony about her experience of sexual abuse in childhood. Tearfully, she told us the perpetrator was a man she had initially trusted. The abuse was traumatic, she continued, and negatively distorted the way she felt about herself. I was profoundly affected, to the point where I was barely breathing. Upon hearing that woman’s story, I began to reflect on my own experiences. For years, I had tried to bury my memories of sexual molestation. I thought about how those childhood experiences had affected my ability to enter into stable adult relationships with men. As I reexamined my unhealthy attitudes toward sex and my unhealthy sense of self-worth, my grief became all-consuming. I realized I had completely lost my sense of dignity. Battling racial and sexist stereotypes can toughen a Black woman. I know because those battles toughened me. When a Black woman tires of being devalued and is exposed to feminist thinking, she won’t tolerate those notions of inferiority and weakness any more. She begins to refuse to accept the low status accorded to her gender, race, class, and any other characteristic used to describe her. My intentions are not to deny or gloss over the real trauma of sexual abuse by claiming that it toughens women. Still, the traumatic aftereffects need not obscure a woman’s potential for growth. Women can and do heal from the destructive effects of incest. As a feminist, I honor the resilience of women. I am convinced that victims can become survivors in ways that facilitate broad social change.1 Feminists encourage women to “break the silence” by telling their stories publicly in order

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to politicize their responses to abuse, rather than to privatize, pathologize, or infantilize such experiences, as certain television talk-shows often do. “Telling your story,” in a feminist context, always involves a process of politicization, whereby a “victim” identity is transformed into a “survivor” identity.2 Sad to say, the discussion concerning incest and child sexual abuse, which began and has become well-established in White communities, is still not accepted as a legitimate concern in many African American communities. Melba Wilson, Black feminist and incest survivor, describes how the damaging myth of the “strong and never vulnerable” Black woman compounds the problem and contributes to silence regarding incest in Black communities: The predominantly accepted view in black communities is that black women are strong and can handle anything that life throws at them—whether rape at the hands of white slave owners; the trauma of being separated from their children in slavery; racism; violence against us within our communities, or sexual abuse. . . . Black women are indeed strong. . . . But, despite the popular notion, we are not the ‘mules of the world.’ We do not possess an interminable ability to take all the shit that may be thrown our way. We can take a lot of it, and we do. But that does not mean to say we enjoy it or wish such a state to continue unchecked. It’s about time we made clear our need for space in which to be vulnerable. The failure to acknowledge the issues raised by incest and other forms of child sexual abuse in our communities, in any kind of reasoned and compassionate way, means that this more damaging of myths continues to oppress us.”3 The application of feminist theory implies the need for activism, and feminist activism entails speaking up for a woman’s right to exercise self-determination. Yet, as another Black feminist, Beth Ritchie, reminds us, “Disclosure is . . . easily confused with treason” in Black communities when Black women dare to expose publicly the violence against Black girls and women committed by Black men: Black women be forewarned. It is a painful unsettling task to call attention to violence in our community. You may find yourselves feeling caught by the trap called loyalty. There is already so much negative information about our families that a need to protect ourselves keeps us quiet. Yet we must not allow our voices to be silenced. Instead we must strengthen and speak the truths about our families.4

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As a child, I was too young to fully comprehend the complexities of self-determination. However, as I grew older, feminist theory, especially radical feminist literature on sexual violence against women, and Black feminist literature on the interconnections of racism and sexism, gave me the tools I needed to take back my dignity from the grip of my molester. Becoming a feminist allowed me to reclaim and redefine wholeness for myself and to help other Black women claim it for themselves. In what follows, I break my silence and speak my truth.

Betrayed by a Cousin My cousin robbed me of my ability to trust men when I was eight years old, when he first molested me. Several abusive encounters occurred over a period of years. He would grab me, probe me, and rub himself against me standing up or lying down. Although in my case no penile-vaginal or anal penetration occurred, sexual molestation can take many forms. The most common forms of incest, as in my case, involve “sexual acts (i.e., both nongenital and genital contact) between a female child and an adolescent or adult male family member/relative.”5 And any inappropriate sexual contact can have destructive effects. Child victims of sexual abuse are exposed to emotional as well as physical violation, because an individual whom the child has trusted to protect her has betrayed that trust. Confusion, guilt, shame, and powerlessness describe some of the feelings I experienced as a child, and this foggy set of emotions lasted into my adult years.6 I mainly remember the sense of dread I felt. Afterwards, I grappled with guilt and shame regarding what became “our dirty little secret.” During my adolescence, I believed that sex was something dirty and to be done in secret. These misconceptions shaped my adult views about certain body parts, sexual behaviors, and sexual values. As one survivor put it: [A]lready at age six or seven, I knew the politics of survival. In order to survive, . . . keep quiet, and remember—you saw it, and said nothing; you submitted, and said nothing. You did not raise a hand, you did not run.7 Over time, I felt I had contributed to my own victimization by remaining silent. Like other victims, I had to deal with the confusion surrounding why my body sometimes acquiesced during the act. The sexual act at that age was foreign to me. When I was initially groped I had no conception of how the body

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could feel. The sensations were both shocking and pleasurable and, ultimately, embarrassing. The blurring of this line between affection and abuse, comfort and discomfort was most confusing. My bodily responses fed my molester’s ego, led to more abuse, and contributed to my feelings of disgrace. Therapists who work with incest survivors explain that this confusion is common because children do not understand how their bodies can respond without their consent, and every child wants the closeness and the feeling of being wanted or special.8 Hence, the body may respond (physiologically) to the abuse, but not the mind (cognitively), leaving the abused child feeling she must have wanted the abuse or asked for it in some way. The “memory of closeness and being special is intertwined with anger, frustration, and the awareness, however vague, that the sexual aspect of the relationship is wrong.”9 It is this perceived betrayal of herself by her body that the victim sometimes finds the hardest to understand. However, researchers in this area warn us to remember that acquiescence must never be equated with consent. When the molestation is continuous, the trauma builds, and the child eventually shuts down emotionally and sometimes physically, affecting her ability to make decisions. She is a child, yet faced with a grown-up act, and has not learned how to say “No” to an older person or authority figure. Most pedophiles do not take no for an answer anyway, and most children simply give in out of fear and curiosity, not realizing the psychological devastation afterward. Self-blame, guilt, and shame in allowing the molestation to continue served further to feed my negative self-concept. There was no pride; there was no dignity. My reflection in the mirror showed a distorted image of me. Each sexual encounter fed into this negative self-image. I did not even feel worthy enough to be rescued from the abuse. What I needed was loving protection and care; what I got was sexual contact. Ultimately, it was my cousin’s responsibility to set the boundaries for me as well as for himself, given our age difference. Men are ultimately responsible for where they put their hands and penises.

Resistance When I was 14 years old, during an encounter with my cousin, he tried to grab my breasts, and I fought back physically for the first time. I said, “No!” and ran off crying. I made a conscious decision to take control of my body. Before that, the sheer shock of being invaded sexually since I was 8 years old would shut me down physically and emotionally. I felt like I was outside of my body, looking at myself, unable to stop the abuse. It was a sickening feeling over which I had no control. I could not name the feeling, but it took a tremendous toll on me and added to my already low opinion of myself. This state of dissociation has been described by many psychologists.10 Susan Blume explains in lay terms:

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“Unable to remove herself physically from the abuse, the creative child victim finds other ways to leave. This leaving takes the form of ‘separation from the self’ or depersonalization.”11 However, this time, by refusing his advances, I had reduced my molester’s power. The sick feelings and fear did not go away all at once, but both he and, more important, I realized he was not as powerful as we had both thought. This was a turning point in my life. I had resisted my molester. I had found my voice, and a small part of me became empowered, confident. Not only did I say “No,” I also physically fought him. Most victims are not as fortunate, and most molesters do not stop at no. I may never really know why he let me go or what he was thinking, but I know for a fact that my healing process had begun. I wondered why he felt he had the right to touch me whenever he wanted. Wasn’t he ashamed of himself? I questioned myself as well: “Why did I allow him to molest me? Why didn’t I speak up and tell somebody? Why hadn’t I said ‘No!’ sooner?” Though I was still confused and ashamed of being victimized, I was also angry and knew I would never allow him to touch me again. Limited information is available regarding the different strategies women use to resist childhood incest and its aftermath. In one study, half of the participants who experienced childhood incest had resisted from the time the abuse began.12 Many children used verbal challenges or physically struggled, regardless of being held to secrecy and threatened with terrible consequences. Despite the abuse, they demonstrated strength and self-determination repeatedly. These findings make clear that “alongside each history of violence and oppression, there runs a parallel history of prudent, creative, and determined resistance.”13 In another study of women incest survivors, participants detailed their efforts to distance themselves from their perpetrators by hiding, telling the perpetrator to stop, and telling an adult.14 Unfortunately, in most cases the perpetrator continued the abuse because the adult did not believe the child. Incest survivors also developed other support systems to resist feelings of alienation and loneliness in their families by engaging in close relationships with teachers, coaches, religious communities, peers, books, and pets.15 After what was to be the final incident of molestation, at age 14, I made a conscious decision to stay away from my cousin, even during family functions. Upon understanding that he had lost power over me, he also kept his distance from me. This secret truce remained until his death in his early 30s as the result of an auto accident. Long before his death, however, I had begun to learn about feminism. I grew up during the time of the social and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and learned a great deal about racism, sexism, ethnic pride, the plight of the poor, and the horrors of war. Very few people were untouched by the discontent rising throughout the United States. The women’s movement

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and civil rights movement, as well as the anti-Vietnam war movement and the Poor People’s Campaign all called on the oppressed to overthrow their oppressors. Political thought and discussions permeated the country. No one, not even children like me, were immune to its effects. As a teenager, I heard the calls and embraced the positive message that I was “Black and beautiful,” worthy of respect and honor. I heard through marches, boycotts, songs, and militant preaching that I should be proud of my dark skin, nappy hair, full lips, and pear shape. Such messages were an ego boost. Watching the marches and hearing women activists such as Angela Davis, Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and Toni Morrison speak out against oppression based on race, sex, and class fed my own unrest at the time. There was an abundance of literature—including fiction, nonfiction, popular print media, poetry, and even songs—about the plight of the oppressed and the various ways people are marginalized in U.S. society. The women’s movement stressed that the “oppressed” also included women and girls. This movement taught girls and women that we have choices, can be whatever we want to be in life, and have the right to make decisions concerning our bodies. Women began to reject the notion of being the property of men and claimed ownership of “our bodies and ourselves” in general.16 I read the works of Maya Angelou, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Nikki Giovanni as a teen and learned through poetry and novels that Black girls are especially vulnerable to male issues of power and control. Black women writers addressed these issues in their works in ways that helped me to understand the term sexual abuse and its prevalence. Eventually I connected Black women’s writings to my own life and discovered certain patterns. What an epiphany! Feminist scholar Joanne Hall has studied “epiphanies” in the lives of child abuse survivors, and her findings, in retrospect, support what I had experienced but could not clearly articulate. She defines epiphanies as “revelatory processes [that] often provide an image of what life could be like”; these images provide models for an achievable future for survivors of child abuse, who usually experience isolated and chaotic family lives as children.17 For example, reading Black feminist fiction helped me realize that like some of the characters in these novels, during the years of abuse, I would spend long periods alone. I became isolated and found solace in solo play. I would also read poetry and novels, listen to music, and watch television. I trusted no one, so I stayed away from groups of people, especially during family gatherings. Once I had fought my molester physically, I came to realize that being a loner gave my cousin too many opportunities to abuse me. The old adage, “There is safety in numbers,” was true in my case. I began to seek out crowds and unexpectedly enjoyed meeting new people. I immersed myself in the company of others, placing myself in the middle of family gatherings, not at the periphery, like some of the characters did in the fiction I read.

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After snatching my freedom back from my cousin’s control, I never again allowed him to be alone with me. I remember telling myself, “I must never give him an opportunity.” We still had a secret, but he would never know whether I ever told anyone. He never asked me if I told anyone, because that would have acknowledged his guilt. I used his fear of being exposed to my advantage. His fear resulted in his loss of power and control over me. My new, bolstered sense of control brought a sense of relief to me, and at the tender age of 14 I started to feel like I might be worthwhile and that my life had some value.

Feminist Perspectives on Incest During my teenage years and throughout my adult years, I found that applying Black feminist theories and radical feminist theories to my understanding of childhood molestation enabled me to see my plight as a child abuse victim in a new light. Black feminist perspectives helped me see that the sexual abuse by my cousin was based on inequalities of gender and age and had qualitatively different meanings for me, due to my race and class. These combined and conflicting facts had to be unraveled. One was inextricably bound to the other. Thus, Black feminism provided additional insight into my experience of incest that could not be easily explained by gender alone. Radical feminist theories helped me understand the pervasive occurrence of violence against women, the role of violence in patriarchal societies. During the 1960s, some scholars referred to people like me as a “doubleminority,” both African American and female. As one Black feminist sociologist put it, “Black women carry the dual stigma of being female and black in a society that devalues both.”18 Those two factors, plus being a child from a working-class background, contributed to my feelings of powerlessness. My molester was keenly aware of how powerless I was, and my surrounding circumstances led me to believe I might as well accept that harsh reality. Who could I tell outside my home? Who would believe me, and even if I were believed, what justice could I get? I felt that because I was a Black girl, subjugation and unfair treatment were my fate. I might as well accept it, get used to it, and cope as best I could in spite of it. It was clear to me that even in my home, my value was mainly measured by the sexual service I provided to my cousin. Black feminist incest survivor and counselor Melba Wilson describes this sense of powerless and the kind of thinking that can counter it: There is a strong tendency amongst abused Black girls/women not to tell and not to discuss it. The underlying reasons for this attitude have to do with feelings of vulnerability centered around race and

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Part of a Black woman’s efforts at healing from incest must entail her understanding that her treatment both within and outside the home is related to how she is viewed by members of both the dominant culture and her own culture.20 In trying to understand how African American culture has been affected by the dominant culture, the writings of White radical feminists helped me. These feminists were most impressive because the media enjoyed highlighting their radical behavior and how they actually practiced what they preached! Although the media’s purpose may have been to frighten the public about “the radical feminist threat,” I was drawn to them. They made their voices heard, and their message was clear, If you’re a woman and you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention! They were angry, and so was I. In retrospect, the decision to stand up for myself against molestation rose out of my pent-up anger over being treated like a sex toy. Radical feminist writings exposed me to the term patriarchy, which meant “a worldwide system of subordination of women by men through violence and sexual exploitation.”21 Catharine MacKinnon, a leading proponent of radical feminism, links sexuality and violence to oppression of women.22 In her understanding of this link (MacKinnon used rape as the example), childhood molestation is a violation of a child’s sexuality and integrity. The experience has serious negative consequences for a child’s sense of self-worth into adulthood. Understanding the nature of power dynamics in patriarchal institutions increased my understanding of my oppression within my own family. I began to see my personal experiences as part of a larger sociocultural and political context and to connect my individual experiences of abuse to other women’s experiences of rape, torture, ridicule, and powerlessness. We were victims of violence not because of anything we did but because of our lack of status as women. Patriarchal privilege and male socialization explain, to a large degree, why my cousin and other men felt entitled to exploit me sexually. Power over another feeds the male ego. Judith Lorber observes how patriarchal perception of women as objects for men’s sexual gratification “encourages men to use women for their own needs.”23 Objectifying women negates the humanity of women, as well as

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their intellectual and professional capabilities and accomplishments and keeps women, regardless of their professional accomplishments, “in their place.” The relationship between a child and her molester is also one that involves the molester’s sexual objectification of her body. Well-known feminist and social scientist David Finkelhor has outlined several key differences between the socialization processes of women and men, which may explain why men are disproportionately more frequent perpetrators of child sexual abuse than women are: (1) Men are not given as many legitimate opportunities to practice nurturing and to express dependency needs, except through sex so that when men need affection and are feeling dependent or insecure, they are much more likely to look for fulfillment in a sexual form, even with an inappropriate partner. (2) Men are much more likely than women to feel a need for sex as a way to reconfirm their masculinity, even if the only available sexual partner is a child; sex with a child may be a weak confirmation, but it is some confirmation, nonetheless. (3) Men, more so than women, are socialized to be able to focus their sexual interest around sexual acts isolated from the context of a relationship—women, by contrast, are taught to focus on whole romantic contexts and whole relationships, where sex is part of the relationships. As a result, it is more difficult for a woman to experience sexual arousal with a child (although it is not impossible). Men can be aroused by children simply because they (children) have the desired kind of genitals or can engage (or be forced to engage) in the desired sex act. (4) Men are often socialized to view appropriate sexual partners as typically smaller and younger than themselves, while women are socialized to see as their appropriate sexual partners as persons who are older and larger. It is easier for a man to find children sexually attractive because children are merely an extension of the gradient along which his appetites are already focused.24 Thus, men are socialized to be dominant and to exercise power as a form of masculinity. Child sexual abuse is the result of the abuse of such power. Finkelhor, in collaborative work with feminist sociologist Diane Russell, found that men constitute 95% of perpetrators in the sexual abuse of girls and 80% in the abuse of boys.25

Coping, Surviving, Thriving Though I felt empowered in some ways during my teenage years, the psychological effects of the sexual abuse persisted. No matter how old I became, my cousin (at least in my mind) maintained a semblance of power over me, even after the molestation ended. His power was in his silent intimidation. I acquiesced in my silence, having never given up the secret. During my adult years the incest memories would leave me feeling crippled, both emotionally and sexually.

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Studies of childhood sexual abuse victims have demonstrated the degree to which the psychological effects can be long-lasting.26 Like many incest survivors, I found sex appalling psychologically but pleasurable physiologically. These conflicting feelings led to a vicious cycle of experiencing pleasure, guilt, shame, and confusion about sexual sensations.27 My subsequent adult relationships with men were always overshadowed by having been molested as a child. These relationships often left me feeling disempowered. I became a caretaker of men, an enabler of their addictions, and was often taken advantage of financially. These men often disregarded my opinions and beliefs, and I allowed them to do so because the child abuse victim’s voice would return, warning, “In order to survive, keep quiet.” Ironically, the more educated and independent I became, the worse my romantic relationships with men became. For example, as I became more successful in my academic career, men began to show disdain toward me and interpreted my independence as a threat to the relationship, rather than as an asset. This led to other forms of abuse. These abuses came in the form of verbal and psychological criticisms. For example, my former fiancé often berated me about the way I styled my hair or for the fact that I rarely wore makeup. Moreover, he expected sex on demand and would threaten to end our relationship when I refused to “give in” to his demands and criticisms. This show of disrespect became more blatant with each criticism. I knew that my academic endeavors had allowed me to develop a positive sense of self-worth and accomplishment, yet I felt criticized for my accomplishments because I challenged traditional definitions of the “good” woman, wife, and mother. Despite my educational achievements and the fact that as a teenager I had found my voice by standing up to and saying no to my abuser, I fell back down as an adult as a result of confusion, disappointing relationships, and emotional exhaustion. My relationships with men were replete with power struggles over various issues, from my finances to my style of dress. My sense of worth plummeted at a certain point, and the psychological trauma I had experienced as a child resurfaced with a vengeance. This cycle of emotional highs and lows is common among incest survivors who are actively engaged in their recovery. Coping (or basic survival) is an important step because it requires that one face “up to the reality that the road back from a crisis experience is always hardest at its beginning. It means taking tiny steps forward because small triumphs build confidence”19 Some feminists suggest that “any woman who is not in the cemetery is a survivor!” Other feminists push for a level of survival that entails healing. As one feminist incest survivor defiantly put it, “I may be scarred for life but I am not damaged beyond repair.”28 The task before me was to continue fighting for my recovery so that I could survive and thrive. Thus, learning to move beyond merely coping—surviving—to actually thriving—enjoying life—became a major step in my healing.

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In order to regain my sense of self worth, I began to remind myself of how far I had come in my healing. I allowed my social and academic accomplishments to boost my morale. Self-affirmations slowly began to build up my ego. Being surrounded by positive people enabled me to feel worthy as well. I even began to attend church regularly. Interestingly, both my pastor and associate pastor were black women. They helped foster my sense of pride through compliments about my physical appearance, my writings and lectures, as well as my involvement in church activities. From those positive experiences, I was able to regain my composure and get back up. Women can and do heal from incest. Moving from being a powerless victim to becoming a thriving survivor tends to occur in increments spanning several years. Also, healing has to be a conscious decision by the victim of sexual abuse. A woman must admit her victimization and recognize it as such. It need not be done in public; in fact, initially, it should probably be a private matter. She needs to acknowledge her experiences and understand that she is blameless, even if she kept it a secret. This process usually occurs at a much later age in her life. Forgiveness has to be part of a woman’s psychological process of coping, and by forgiveness, I mean she must forgive herself for feeling guilt and shame. The woman must come to understand that the guilt and shame belong only to her molester, not the girl that she was or the woman that she is now. As I developed positive coping strategies over the years, I grew stronger psychologically and noticed that I was beginning to regain a sense of dignity. I then had to consciously reassess my life and decide how I wanted to be treated by the men in it. It was refreshing to learn as an adult that men—White men as well as Black men—could also become radical feminists.29 White American feminists Peter Blood, Alan Tuttle, and George Lakey wrote: Women face a constant threat of physical violence and sexual aggression in our society. As men we are rarely aware of how pervasive this is or the powerful effect it has on women’s outlook on themselves and the world. A majority of women have probably experienced some form of sexual abuse as children. The memory of these experiences often gets suppressed because they feel so humiliated and scared and because adults deny repeatedly that such a thing could happen. Society is filled with messages pressuring women to provide men with sexual pleasure.30 Reading and hearing men acknowledge the social, psychological and cultural impact of inequality among men and women—and how it shapes both women’s view of themselves as people of worth and men’s perceptions of

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themselves as privileged—gave me hope. Knowledge is indeed power, and I felt empowered. However, maintaining my sense of empowerment has been a continuous battle. Issues of trust in relationships with friends, kin, and lovers had to be addressed. In order to overcome those negative sexual experiences and to reevaluate the role of sex in my life, I had to come to grips with what had happened to me in the past, grieve, and then put it behind me. I also had to deal with my anger and foster empowerment in ways that were life affirming rather than self-destructive. Feminists argue that anger is a healthy, useful reaction to abuse. That anger gave me strength to cope with the initial impact of the extent of my abuse, yet the emotional lows and highs seemed endless and often left me feeling depressed.31 Over time, and with the commitment to healing, confronting these issues gradually eased my self-doubt and led to what felt like a feminist rebirth. Each time I fell into the guilt-shame-anger cycle, I emerged stronger, and my life became more manageable than before the episode. My defensiveness eased, and my assertiveness skills grew. Achieving degrees in higher education and the wisdom I gained from adult life experiences helped me develop a sense of accomplishment and recover from the crises of my past. I agree with Claire Burke Draucker, who studied women who had experienced sexual violence by men close to them: “Although the violence had significant and long-lasting negative effects on their lives, the women felt their experiences made them stronger by forcing them to find ways to look out for themselves in a violent world. Disillusionment prompted them to create better lives[,]. . . . and taking justice into one’s own hands involved “getting even by getting better.”32 Grappling with the traumatic aftermath of sexual abuse can be difficult, but is not impossible. I began to replace fatalistic thoughts with positive ones. Hope grew out of despair. For all that, women’s need for individual hope, safety, and protection against male perpetrators must not overshadow our need to change the social order.33 As individual survivors, we can change our individual situations, but we must also organize other women to seize power by speaking out about their abuse and pressuring men to change their behavior as well as their understanding of sex, affection, masculinity, and interpersonal violence. Feminism as a social and political movement teaches us that regardless of differences of race, ethnicity, class, and gender, the fight against domination benefits not only women as individuals but the society as a whole. African American feminist bell hooks argues, “Feminist efforts to end patriarchal domination should be of primary concern . . . because [they insist] on the eradication of exploitation and oppression in the family context and in all other intimate relationships.”34 As women fight for an end to patriarchal domination, our basic human rights and the respect we get as persons become recognized as legitimate. Hence,

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the chance of a woman establishing a strong, positive identity is enhanced when she applies feminist principles to her life, particularly when that woman is a Black woman. The survivor asserts her individual rights and holds people accountable for their actions. She refuses to be victimized again and becomes skilled at identifying forms of victimization. In effect, she thwarts any attempts at abuse. As a survivor, I began life again. Once I became knowledgeable about these processes and applied them to my life, I reclaimed my self-respect, my dignity. It was mine for the taking all along.

Notes 1. Anderson, K. M., 2006, “Surviving Incest: The Art of Resistance,” Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 87: 409–16; Grossman, F., A. B. Cook, S. Kepkep, and K. Koenen, 1999, With the Phoenix Rising: Lessons from Ten Resilient Women Who Overcame the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass); Hall, J. M., 2003, “Positive Self-Transitions in Women Child Abuse Survivors,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 24: 647–66. 2. Dinsmore, C., 1991, From Surviving to Thriving: Incest, Feminism, and Recovery (Albany: State University of New York Press); Profit, N., 2000, Women Survivors, Psychological Trauma, and the Politics of Resistance (New York: Haworth); Wilson, M., 1993, Crossing the Boundary: Black Women Survive Incest (Seattle: Seal). 3. Wilson 1993, 10–11. 4. Cited in Wilson 1993, 26. Original quote from Beth Ritchie-Bush, 1983, “Facing Contradictions: Challenge for Black Feminists,” Aegis 37: 16. 5. Anderson 2006, 410; In my chapter the perpetrator is referred to as “he,” and victims are referred to as “she” because the sexual abusers of children are overwhelmingly male and because, given the dynamics of power and sexuality in a male-dominated culture, the danger posed to children comes from men. Although men abuse boys and, indeed, some women abuse boys and girls, in this chapter I am dealing only with the most common form of abuse. 6. Blume, S. 1990, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women (New York: Wiley and Sons); Browne, A., and D. Finkelhor, 1986, “Impact of Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Research,” Psychological Bulletin 99: 66–67. 7. Moon, B., 1983, “I Never Told Anyone,” in Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, ed. E. Bass and L.Thornton (New York: Harper and Row), 158. 8. Although children are curious about their bodies and even newborn infants respond to a variety of sensations that they may experience as sexually stimulating, childhood has been referred to as “the last frontier in sex research” because few reliable data exist about sexual behavior during this important period of development, and findings are often subject to guesswork and inference. For more information, see Wyatt, G., M. Newcomb, and M. Riederle, 1993, Sexual Abuse and Consensual Sex: Women’s Developmental Patterns and Outcomes (Newbury Park, CA: Sage), 17–21. 9. Wilson 1993, 106.

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10. Banyard, L., L. Williams, and J. Siegel. 2001. “Understanding Links among Childhood Trauma, Dissociation, and Women’s Mental Health,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 71: 311–21. 11. Blume 1990, 83. 12. Kelly, L., 1988. Surviving Sexual Violence (Cambridge, UK: Polity). 13. Wade, A., 1997, “Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression,” Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal 19: 23–39. 14. Anderson 2006, 413–14. 15. Ibid., 414. 16. See various editions of the book Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, which popularized this phrase. 17. Hall, J., 2003, “Positive Self-Transitions in Women Child Abuse Survivors,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 24: 647–66. 18. Myers, L. W., 1980, Black Women: Do They Cope Better? (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall). 19. Wilson 1993, 87–88. 20. Banyard, V., L. Williams, J. Siegel, and C. West, 2002, “Childhood Sexual Abuse in the Lives of Black Women: Risk and Resilience in a Longitudinal Study,” Women and Therapy 25 (3/4): 45–58; Hall, J. M., 1996, “Geography of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Women’s Narratives of Their Childhood Environments,” Advances in Nursing Science 18(4): 29–47; Wyatt, G. E., 1997, Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives (New York: Wiley and Sons). 21. Lorber, J., ed., 2001, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics (Roxbury, Canada: Irwin), 78. 22. MacKinnon, C., 2001, “Sex and Violence,” in Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, ed. J. Lorber (Roxbury, Canada: Irwin), 80. 23. Lorber 2001, 78. 24. Cited in Wilson 1993, 154–55. 25. Ibid., 156. 26. Finkelhor, D., 1990, “Early and Long-Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: An Update,” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 21(4): 385–406; Polusny, M. A., and V. M. Follette, 1995, “Long-Term Correlates of Child Sexual Abuse: Theory and Review of the Empirical Literature,” Applied and Preventive Psychology 4: 143–66; Wyatt, G., & G. J. Powell, eds., 1988, Lasting Effects of Child Abuse Sexual Abuse (Newbury Park, CA: Sage). 27. Dinsmore 1991, 91–105. 28. Ibid., 1. 29. Funk, R. E., 1993, Stopping Rape: A Challenge for Men (New York: New Society); Salaam, K., 1980, Our Women Keep Our Skies from Falling: Six Essays to Smash Sexism (New Orleans, LA: Nkombo); Stoltenberg, J., 1998, The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience (New York: Replica). 30. Blood, P., A. Tuttle, and G. Lakey, 1983, “Understanding and Fighting Sexism: A Call to Men,” in their Off Their Backs and on Our Own Two Feet (Philadelphia: New Society), 1–8.

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31. Dinsmore 1991, 38–42. 32. Draucker, C. B., 2001, “Learning the Harsh Realities of Life: Sexual Violence, Disillusionment, and Meaning,” Health Care for Women International 22: 67–84. These findings do not imply, however, that because the women gained wisdom and strength in adversity, sexual violence should be conceptualized as a character-building life experience and minimized as a significant social problem. Instead, the narratives provoke critiques of existing social structures that compel women to seek safety. 33. Hobbs, J., 1987, “A Personal and Societal Challenge,” Social Work 32: 467–68; Whalen, M., 1996, Counseling to End Violence against Women: A Subversive Model (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). 34. hooks, b., 1998, “Feminism: A Transformational Politic,” in Contemporary Feminist Theory: A Text/Reader, ed. M. F. Rogers (Columbus, OH: McGraw Hill), 459.

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Chapter 14

Diving Deep and Surfacing How I Healed from Depression

Vanessa Jackson

I had very strong women models in my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt. They used to say, “When you fall down, get up. If you fall down again, get up. And don’t be ashamed of falling down.” —Carrie Saxon Perry, in B. Lanker, I Dream a World

Feminists focus on depression largely because, for several decades, both researchers and mental health professionals have repeatedly identified depression as a problem that particularly affects women.1 However, most theories of depression ignore the possible role of gender, and depression is presumed to represent some kind of disorder or dysfunction within the individual. Popular, medically oriented theoretical perspectives on depression emphasize that its origins can be traced to the biochemistry of the brain. But, unlike tests for other health conditions thought to originate as a biological disorder, there is no medical procedure (analogous to a blood test or brain scan), independent of subjective (or “clinical”) judgments made by clinicians, to determine whether or not someone should be diagnosed with depression.2 Traditional approaches to depression suggested that something was always malfunctioning inside a woman’s brain or body. During the 1960s and 1970s, to transcend the limitations of that concept, feminist theorists associated women’s mental health issues with their oppression in society. Feminist interpretations of and practices regarding depressed women linked personal experiences of bad feelings, troubled states of mind, and overwhelming fatigue to the political

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contexts in which women were attempting to survive.3 Feminists used consciousness-raising groups, self-help groups, action groups, and in some cases radical feminist therapy to teach women how to become experts in their own mental health by addressing the sociopolitical systems that worked against a healthy disposition. Being depressed, according to these feminists, involved a continuum of both positive and negative feelings. In the midst of distress, a woman could find hope in her situation through women-only groups that encouraged both personal and political empowerment; these included assertiveness training, selfdefense groups, and reproductive health workshops, as well as special support groups for incest survivors, young mothers with children, and lesbians. Most important, feminist approaches to women’s health (mental and physical) upheld the validity and importance of women’s personal experiences. Gender-sensitive understanding helped women, who had traditionally been dealt with as objects of treatment, to become active participants in their own healing, using a variety of traditional and nontraditional treatments. As a Black feminist therapist with a largely African American, female clientele, I believe that if a better understanding of Black women and depression is to develop, it must explicitly include models that show how our depression is shaped at the interface of public and private life, as well as how our distress and well-being have gendered and cultural origins. I know firsthand—and researchers have empirically demonstrated—that for depressed women, voicing long-silenced experiences can play a crucial part in their empowerment.4 In what follows, I share my experiences with depression and descent as an African American feminist, mental health consumer, and mental health professional.

Falling Down in the Dark Falling down, as if plummeting into a deep, dark place, is the perfect metaphor for depression. I was lying stretched out on my kitchen floor at 4:30 am one day, wondering if I would ever get up again. At that moment, on that cold, hard floor, I finally admitted I was immobilized by an emotional pain more serious than the occasional “blue funk.” My feminist arsenal of words like womanist subjectivity, agency, and multifaceted oppression and liberation could not serve as levers to move me as usual from painful emotions to my witty, intellectual, and optimistic Black feminist self. Nor could my political ideology alone get me off the floor. In that frightening moment I admitted how defeated I felt by life. However, it was also an empowering moment: Sinking to the floor and just being a small brown lump was an incredible release! For the first time in my life I was simply refusing to maintain the façade of holding it all together. My body was willing to do what my mind would not—stop and rest.

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My depression started gradually, triggered by the unraveling of my marriage. Less than eight months into the marriage, my husband began to withdraw from me, and I was floundering in my efforts to connect with him emotionally or physically. Later, I found out that the disconnection was caused, in part, by an affair that he had been having with a colleague. On Christmas Day, he told me he did not love me any more. Devastated, I literally took to my bed. Depression became my new companion. Rage, sadness, and grief I had expected, but the complete absence of any particular feeling—the total numbness—caught me off guard. As my depression deepened, my soon-to-be-exhusband’s hostility increased. His disdain for my inability to function emotionally in the face of his betrayal accelerated my descent. At one point he accused me of using my depression to trap him. His fear of being trapped further silenced me—yet I distinctly remember wishing I had the energy to attack him, verbally and physically. A blue-eyed white man was telling me I was of no value to him and that he had never seen the “strong Black woman” I had claimed to be. That day, balled up on the couch, my brown eyes and ears not believing what I was seeing and hearing, I managed to summon enough energy to conclude that this man was out to destroy me. As much as I thought I loved him, I decided I loved me more. In the past, I moved through these “blue funks” by dusting off the albums and tapes with the most gut-wrenching songs, for a dramatic pity party that was nothing less than a structured depression session. I would light candles in every room, pour myself a drink, and turn off the phone. I was usually prepared to rappel off of the rocky face of my external life and go deep within myself. However, this time, something was different. I was plummeting off a cliff in slow motion, fully experiencing the terror of it all. No safety rope. No calls for help. The dive was deep, and I couldn’t care less if I ever