How Women of Color Feminists Challenge White Feminists

Racism has always been a contentious issue. Since colonial days, white feminists have assumed supremacy over their black counterparts, and they only viewed the black race as slaves. This has raised concerns in the recent past with the black race pushing for equal opportunities in all sectors in the society. In this essay, I summarize various texts about how women of color feminists challenge white feminists’ assumption of a universal female identity and experience. In the text “Indigently, Settler colonialism, White Supremacy”, the author discusses various pillars of white supremacy. The pillars are supported by logics like slavery, since black people are inherently rendered as slaves. The second logic is genocide, which holds that indigenous people must disappear and non-indigenous people must take all possessions. The final logic is orientalism which claims that certain people or nations are inferior to others. White color is viewed as a weapon which makes indigenous people disappear so that the white people become the worthy inheritors of all that is indigenous. The author argues that there is a lack of development of critical apparatus for intersecting all the logics of white supremacy. In the book Feminism Is For Everybody, the author discusses the difference in class in feminism. White women formed liberation movements based on class, and they were the ones leading and emphasizing on work as a key to women liberation against male domination. Since they were young, white women considered their status higher than that of black women, and they believed that the whites were a privileged category. In the article “Gendering Racial Formation”, the author discusses gender and its relationship to race. Formation of racial projects is discussed as one of the factors that fueled racism in feminism. Black women did not enjoy citizenship rights like their white counterparts and they were seen as essential labor force in the southern economy, and were subjected to vagrancy laws and mandatory labor contacts. In the article “Specifies of Racial Formation” (published at the essay writer.com), the author discusses how race as a mode of representation intersects with race as an articulation of social structure. Black women were diverted from feminism with the notion that their issues were narrow (Ferguson 49). It explains how black movement challenged the existing dominance of racial ideologies resulting to destabilization of racial order anchored by the state and initiation of a comprehensive reform process. In the book Methodology of the Oppressed, the author discusses the pursuit of social justice in the third world feminism. The U.S feminists of color enacted social movements to end dominance of their counterparts and fight for equal rights. The consciousness of the colored feminists enabled them to be recognized in the fight for feminism just as their white counterparts were. In the book Race and Culture, the author explains the differences and effects of racial prejudice and racial antagonism. Racial conflict and antagonism can be seen in the resistance that is experienced by the black race in quest of rising. There is a clear distinction between the whites and the blacks even though they belong to the same occupation or professional class. The book Black Feminist Thought reflects the struggle of colored women to regain their personal and collective voice, which has for a long time been silenced by the white-dominated culture. The author explains how a typical black American woman’s journey to success through empowerment is characterized by oppression and social injustices. The book Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism discusses the major differences between the dominant white feminism and the grounded black feminism. The author describes the need for simultaneous address of both sets of feminism issues in order for the feminists to achieve their intellectual and political desires. The effort of black feminists to enjoy the same opportunities as white women has been successful although much still needs to be done. The government should engage both sets of gender feminism in enacting policies aimed at enabling equal opportunities for all.