Fania Noël, activist, doctor in sociology and teacher-researcher at the Pratt Institute in New York, presents in this book black feminisms in North America and Europe in all their diversity and complexity. These currents of thought are observed from different angles, the author explores gender issues, prison, domestic space, bodies, white feminisms. Interview.
Can you explain to our readers what you mean by black feminisms, and how it is different from Afrofeminism?
Libertalia contacted me to write about Afrofeminism, but I wanted to write about black feminisms more broadly, given that I had already written on the first topic. Black feminism is a general category that covers all different types of feminisms of black people, in African and Caribbean countries, but also black minority communities in the diaspora. These terms are not interchangeable.
Afrofeminism is part of black feminisms, but black feminisms are not limited to Afrofeminism
Afrofeminism is not the same thing as Black Feminismwhich is not the same thing as Senegalese feminism, etc. These different currents do not cover the same story. Clearly, Afrofeminism is part of Black Feminisms, but Black Feminisms are not limited to Afrofeminism.
You are talking about the concept ofidentity politics, It's a term we heard a lot during Kamala Harris' campaign. What does this term really mean?
The fact that identity reductionism or the politics of representation are wrongly named “identity politics” (identity politics), it is a form of intellectual revisionism. This really irritated the creators of the term who found their concept misguided.
This concept was taken up and emptied of its meaning until its meaning was reversed, both by the left and then by the right. L’identity politics or identity politics, is initially a form of politics by and for “minorities”. A desire to focus on our own oppression, with the idea that there is no one more qualified than ourselves to defend our own interests. THE Combahee River Collective, a major radical lesbian feminist organization, explained this as early as the 1970s.
The representation policyon the contrary, consists of highlighting people from a community in the hope that this representation alone will allow advancement. It often degrades into identity reductionism, which reduces the person to a role of tokenwhose mere presence would allow any broader questioning to be evacuated.
The only politics based on identity, and which works, is that of the majority
We can take the example of Emmanuel Macron. He denies not being reactionary, since he had a homosexual prime minister. Obviously, this doesn't make sense if you look at his reactionary policies.
We often talk about identity politics for minorities, but what we must understand is that the only politics based on identity, and which works, is that of the majority. It is whites and men who, statistically, need to change the most, in terms of reactionary attitudes, economic liberalism.
Speaking of white men, you say that blackness goes beyond the notion of gender, can you explain this notion?
It’s simple, in reality, gender is always racialized. We are above all a black woman or a black man, it is almost a gender in itself, to use the title of the article “My gender is black”. This is due to the fact that the dark fact is extremely destabilizing throughout the world. We can cite the example of the phenomenon of hypersexualization, we find it in North Africa with the treatment reserved for migrants or more formerly with eunuchs, but also in Asia, in Europe… Black people are often reduced to bodies.
Generally speaking, everyone is racialized on different scales, whiteness confines itself to other very specific frameworks. White hegemonic masculinity is one of them. We also observe a backlash (backlash) towards feminism which has become much more mainstream and which would like to put women, particularly white women, back in translator (traditional wife).
Many men push for them to integrate this lifestyle consisting of delegating all political power to their husbands and abandoning their economic independence by making them leave work in favor of servile domesticity.
The men of this world have a feeling of loss of power which they try to regain by all means.
This is linked to resentment towards the massification of progressive ideas in society. Men, for the most part, have not been socialized, including younger ones, to adhere to feminist ideas. Furthermore, we are in a late capitalismand men do not have the financial means to maintain a wife and a household of their own. They want it translator but without the tradwife money.
So they would like a wife at home, but one who works is not possible and it breeds resentment. A resentment that causes more and more people, younger and younger, to radicalize towards masculinism. The men of this world have a feeling of loss of power which they try to regain by all means, including political power, but also legal power, over the decisions and bodies of women.
Through the question of prison and the indictment of black men in cases of sexual and gender-based violence, you point out the “traps” made for black feminists. Can you tell us more?
To recall the context, many anti-colonialist movements cajoled black men and did not push them to adopt a form of radicalism on certain issues. They were thus able to remain, for some, in a form of conservatism.
Black feminisms in North America and Europe are marked by the dynamics of sexism and sexual violence suffered by black women in black organizations. This is evidenced by the political declaration of the Coordination of Black Women and that of the Combahee River Collective. Frederick Douglass, for example, called Sojourner Truth uneducated while supporting white suffragettes who justified the lynching of black men.
Similarly, Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers admitted to committing rape, claiming to have first targeted black women in ghettos for “practice”, before carrying out serial rapes on white women, whom he presented as politically motivated acts.
Faced with this violence and these contradictions, black feminists analyzed and denounced the hypersexualization of black men, used to legitimize racial violence, as demonstrated by Ida B. Wells in her work on lynchings.
In some cases, there is also a certain “we are not victims” and the apology of force which goes hand in hand with an adherence to conservative values.
The same type of mechanisms are thus reproduced at the political level as at the domestic level, in the sense that black women are expected to be strong, fragile, desirable women… But also to be the guardians of their brothers. On the other hand, men are not expected to grow up.
When a black man is implicated, there is often an injunction to solidarity
We find this idea in a certain number of political organizations of which these women are part, where they are also expected to be the “little hands” of the movement.
And when a black man is implicated in cases of sexist and sexual violence, there is often an injunction to solidarity or the least to silence. These women should “get over their feelings” so as not to risk penalizing black liberation movements. And this is not limited to countries where black people are minorities, it is the same in countries with a black majority where women are a form of “universal mother” who has to take care of his sons.
What is the notion of “home” that you are developing, and how does it relate to feminist questions?
In my work, the question of “home” arises around the following question: “What is the limit of home, when the state is likely to interfere in your home via social services or when your life is a public debate: the way you raise your children, what you do with your money , etc ? »
In addition to this, it is also a question of material conditions, when they do not allow having a decent home, space, etc. It is more than likely that this state of affairs will impact your daily life, even at a very young age. We can take the example, in certain families, of the place and role of eldest daughters who are required to take on great responsibilities.
Later, this is found in the couple between a significant mental load, whether domestic or at work. These situations can also be accompanied by sexist and sexual violence. All of this makes the creation of a home in the feminist sense all the more complex.
We also have situations of single mothers who are not ready to accept remaining in relationships that are harmful to them. Which is a very good thing, but what weakens their daily lives and minimizes their space for privacy.
What would you say to people who think that the salvation of black communities lies in a form of black capitalism?
For me, black capitalism is linked to a masculinist idea of power. We have, once again, a sort of “ we are not victims, we are strong, so we must be like the strong » and the strong in our society are the capitalists, those who oppress others.
For me, this is a real limit to the imagination of many black activists. Certainly, there is significant political hegemony, but capitalism as a system is structurally not made for us.
There is the refrain: “we can all be entrepreneurs”, and then, we can hire a cleaning lady to free ourselves from the mental load and daily constraints. But who will this cleaning lady be? It will still and always be black and racialized women.
What we must expect is not the advent of black capitalism, it is the abolition of capitalism, for blacks and for all other communities.
In essence, money is not unlimited, we cannot all be billionaires. The very principle of being rich is being able to be served. And who will continue to serve if not people from our communities who are marginalized today.
What we must expect is not the advent of black capitalism, it is the abolition of capitalism, for blacks and for all other communities.
Obviously, in the meantime, there are a lot of things to do, I'm not saying we should wait and see. We must support each other, help each other between communities and within their community.
Would you like to add anything?
I would like to talk about the elections which are coming up in two years in France. It's distressing to note that the political spectrum, whatever it may be, has a problem addressing the issue of racism. If they can recognize, for some, that there is racism, it is to deny or avoid talking about neocolonialism, borders, exploitation, which makes no sense. And I include part of the left too.
The issue of racism is often understood as “We must treat racialized people as French people like any other.” But it raises the question of what it means to be French, and above all what does that say about people who experience racism and who are not French?
Comments collected by Ambre Couvin
Photo Gaël Rapon
