All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave

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All the Women Are White,
All the Blacks Are Men,
But Some of Us Are Brave
First edition
EditorsAkasha Gloria Hull
Patricia Bell-Scott
Barbara Smith
CountryUnited States
PublisherFeminist Press
Publication date
1982; 42 years ago (1982)
Pages401
AwardsNational Institute's Women of Color Award
ISBN0912670959
OCLC8165060

All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982) is a landmark feminist anthology in Black Women's Studies printed in numerous editions, co-edited by Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith.[1]

Awards[edit]

Hull received the National Institute's Women of Color Award for her contribution to this book. Her contribution to this "landmark scholarship directed attention to the lives of Black women and, combined with the numerous articles she wrote thereafter, helped remedy the emphasis within Feminist Studies on white women and within Black studies on Black men".[2]

Context[edit]

Further information: First-wave feminism, Second-wave feminism, Third-wave feminism, Fourth-wave feminism, and Womanism

The interest in black feminism was on the rise in the 1970s, through the writings of Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others.[3]: 87 

In 1981, the anthology This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, was published and But Some of Us Are Brave was published the following year. In both anthologies, the emphasis was placed on the intersection between race and gender. The contributors argued that previous waves of feminism had focused on issues related to white women. They wanted to negotiate a large space for women of color. According to Teresa de Lauretis, This Bridge Called My Back and But Some of Us Are Brave revealed "the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism" and created a "shift in feminist consciousness."[4]: 221 

Impact[edit]

In the 2000 reprint of their anthology, editors Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith described how in 1992 black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" - African American Women in Defense of Ourselves - to the controversy[5]: xvi  surrounding the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court of the United States against the backdrop of allegations by law professor Anita Hill, about sexual harassment that became part of Thomas' confirmation hearings.[6][7]

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw cited But Some of Us Are Brave at the beginning of her seminal 1989 paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics", in which she introduced the concept of Intersectionality. Crenshaw is known for introducing and developing intersectional theory to feminism.[8] Crenshaw noted that it was one of the "very few Black women's studies books". She used the title All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave, as her "point of departure" to "develop a Black feminist criticism".[9]: 139 

Barbara Y. Welke published her article entitled "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855–1914", in reference to Hull et al., in 1995 in the Law and History Review. Welke wrote how Crenshaw, referring to But Some of Us Are Brave, said that the title "sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis.[9]: 139  [10][11]: 139 

Related readings[edit]

Contributors (writers)[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Hull, Akasha Gloria; Bell-Scott, Patricia; Smith, Barbara, eds. (1982). All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Old Westbury, New York: Feminist Press. pp. 401. ISBN 0912670959. OCLC 8165060.
  2. ^ Masters, Ryan (January 29, 2004). "Word Warrior: Local poet helped forge links between feminism, black power, and new literature". Monterey County Weekly. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013..
  3. ^ Bloom, Harrold; Spencer, Stephen, eds. (2009), Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, On Hurston's Contribution to the Canon, New York: Infobase Publishing
  4. ^ de Lauretis, Teresa, "The Technology of Gender" in Rakow, Lana; Wackwitz, Laura (1987). Feminist Communication Theory: Selections in Context.
  5. ^ Hull, Akasha Gloria; Bell-Scott, Patricia; Smith, Barbara, eds. (2000). But Some Of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: Black Women's Studies. Feminist Press at CUNY. p. xvi.
  6. ^ "Excerpt from Nina Totenberg's breaking National Public Radio report on Anita Hill's accusation of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas". NPR. October 6, 1991. Retrieved October 5, 2008.
  7. ^ "The Thomas Nomination; Excerpts From Senate's Hearings on the Thomas Nomination". The New York Times. October 12, 1991. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  8. ^ Adewunmi, Bim (April 2, 2014). "Kimberlé Crenshaw on intersectionality: 'I wanted to come up with an everyday metaphor that anyone could use'". New Statesman. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  9. ^ a b Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1989). "Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics". University of Chicago Legal Forum. University of Chicago Law School: 139–168. ISBN 0415447461. OCLC 775574715. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  10. ^ Welke, Barbara Y. (1995). "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855–1914". Law and History Review. 13 (2): 261–316. doi:10.2307/743861. JSTOR 743861. S2CID 145343778.
  11. ^ Crenshaw, Kimberlé (2009). "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: a Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics". Feminist Legal Studies. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415447492. OCLC 775574715.
  12. ^ Wallace, Michele (1982), "A Black feminist's search for sisterhood", in Hull; Bell-Scott; Smith (eds.), But Some of Us Are Brave, Feminist Press.
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