The current fight against the feminization of Black men is a fight to sustain an oppressive status quo of female degradation and subjugation, it’s not about preserving Black manhood. First off we need to understand that: Black manhood has never even existed in the USA! We were not men under chattel slavery, we were not even recognized as human. After emancipation and during the Reconstruction era we simply imitated the roles, behaviors, standards, dress, and values of white men, that’s all we had known as Black men in the US for over 200 years. White men were our only reference . . .
Gender
The Role of Women in the Revolution
An essay by Josina Machel of FRELIMO, the Mozambique national liberation organization. It was in October 1966, in a meeting of the Central Committee, that FRELIMO decided that the Mozambican woman should take a more active part in the struggle for national liberation, at all levels. It was decided that she should receive political and military training in order to make her more capable of fulfilling whatever tasks the revolution might demand of her. Thus, a few months later, in the beginning of 1967, the first group of women from Cabo Delgado and Niassa began their training. At first this . . .
Revolutionary African Culture for an End to Gender-Based Violence
ur focus must be on ideological and political development of the masses. The enemies of our people are in our midst and only mass, revolutionary African culture and organization can combat this reactionary behavior. We must collectively reconstruct not only the ethical and political foundation for a new African society but also reinvigorate revolutionary and principled people willing to build an ethical and principled society for the future of Africa and all our African communities. . . .
Africana Womanism vs. Black Feminism
Africana Womanism and Black Feminism are two different approaches that attempt to redefine and contextualize the experiences of African/Black women. Though both of these ideologies underscore Black women’s experiences, the principles and methods of these two approaches differ and sometimes conflict. . . .
Why Misogynists Make Great Informants
This piece on gender violence in social justice movements was originally published in make/shift magazine’s Spring/Summer 2010 issue and written by Courtney Desiree Morris. In January 2009, activists in Austin, Texas, learned that one of their own, a white activist named Brandon Darby, had infiltrated groups protesting the Republican National Convention (RNC) as an FBI informant. Darby later admitted to wearing recording devices at planning meetings and during the convention. He testified on behalf of the government in the February 2009 trial of two Texas activists who were arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails, . . .
Abolition Beyond The Binary
“The prison, therefore, functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs—it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.” Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the American criminal justice system currently holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 . . .
A Historical Materialist Analysis of Gender for the Worldwide Pan-African Movement
The Worldwide Pan-African Movement’s (WWPAM) current line on gender contradictions and the role of women in the struggle is out of date. As a movement, we are in dire need of an update in our analysis around these questions if we are serious about the struggle against patriarchy and the liberation of women and non-men*. *Non-men means folks who are neither men nor women, but who are still oppressed on the basis of gender under patriarchy and capitalism. This paper seeks to raise and discuss three major contradictions that currently exist within the WWPAM’s generally accepted line on gender, patriarchy, . . .