Becoming Visible: Black Lesbian Discussions

‘Where might we go if we dare’: moving beyond the ‘thick, suffocating fog of whiteness’ in feminism

“…The only thing I've ever written was 'Lesbian Discussions' in that special issue of Feminist Review (Carmen et al, 1984), which was important to do. It was a really important intervention to say, 'We're here' -and I was in the Lesbian Left group as I say -but as an object of trying to query away, and worry away, and say something about, I think people do it better than me.…”

‘Disparate in Voice, Sympathetic in Direction’: Gendered Political Blackness and the Politics of Solidarity

“…Tensions over sexuality within OWAAD have been discussed at great length (see Brixton Black Women's Group, 1984;Carmen et al, 1984;Grewal et al, 1988;Mason-John and Khambatta, 1993;Williams, 1993;Dadzie, 2009;Lewis, 2009Lewis, , 2011Lockhart, 2009;Wilson, 2011), and the third National Black Women's Conference is often described as the moment when all the trouble began. Organised around the theme 'Black Women in Struggle ' (1981), at this conference, as the story goes, lesbian and bisexual participants struggled to have their voices heard.…”

Feminism and the contradictions of oppression

“…These passionate and often personal accounts of the divisions between women are also addressed more generally to liberal, radical, and marxist feminists. Becoming visible as a specific minority (Carmen et al 1984), acknowledging racism as a personal responsibility (Pence 1982), or exploring the specificity of one's position in relation to racial and ethnic divisions (Cameron 1983) are personal and painful processes. Criticisms of feminist conceptions of women's oppression have come from women's direct experiences of feminists' intolerance or ignorance, from pain, frustration, and disillusion that have made some women feel that feminism excludes them.…”

“…This point has been developed more specifically in the case of black, ethnic-minority, and third-world lesbians, who are dependent on other women for support, but who also encounter racism and discrimination from women in making their specificity visible (Carmen et al 1984;Zehra 1987). Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a Maori lesbian, identifies racism as a disease of feminism which must be dealt with, but argues (1984:120) that 'sexism is the primary offence against humanity.'…”

“…In other parts of the world, cultural concepts of sexuality do not classify lesbianism and heterosexuality in comparable ways to those which have developed in the west since the seventeenth century. Lesbianism, however, has been a significant factor in uniting women, in at least some respects, across cultural, racial, and class boundaries, even though this unit remains to some extent contradictory (Combahee River Collective 1983;Carmen et al 1984;Te Awekotuku 1984;Zehra 1987). At the same time the nature of the similarities and differences between heterosexual and lesbian sexuality has remained far from clear.…”