FLESH BOY

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being. Therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people don’t know that. Every time I tried to go into a public place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, “He’s a human being; don’t stop him.” That bill was for the white man, not for me. I knew I could vote all the time and that it wasn’t a privilege but my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill to tell white people, “When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him.” That bill was for white people.

Dear Diary, I’m sorry for all those hateful racist things I said about you. Everything has changed; I’m in love. This is no crush. I feel like I’m wildly out of control on a toboggan of passion sliding down an icy mountain of Laird headed towards a giant oak tree of denial. I’ve never been so happy - something you would never understand you dirty, dirty Jew diary. Just kidding, just kidding.

One of the most important lessons white feminists learned from the work of feminists of color in the 1980s was that oppression — women’s oppression — always exists along multiple axes simultaneously. Feminists must therefore take racism and classism as central features of women’s oppression — not as add-ons that can be considered after the “real” challenges of “women’s” oppression have been met.