By Laura Bramall and Pranathi Yannamani
‘I can’t breathe’ is not a new phrase.
In 2014 Eric Garner gasped ‘I can’t breathe’ before dying in the chokehold of NYPD officer Pantaleo. In 2015 David Dungay, an Indigenous Australian man, cried the same phrase as he died in the grip of five guards at Sydney Prison. Now, because of Floyd, these three words have become the haunting refrain of anti-black racism protests around the world, but they must be adopted by all social equality movements.
Tarana Burke, the founder of the MeToo movement, describes its roots in the history of lynching in the segregated South. The postcards that were made of ‘strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees’ to remind white visitors of their Sunday afternoon out are a cruel reminder of that African American bodies were not their own, in practice or under law. She resents the appropriation of the movement by white celebrities: #MeToo now cements an outsized expectation of what sexual violence feels like. For Burke, sexual violence against young girls from marginalised communities is a cause and a symptom of the same denial of bodily agency as lynching. MeToo has been appropriated, just as white colonialists, plantation owners, and rapists have taken control of black and female bodies. She says “Inherently, having privilege isn’t bad…but it’s how you use it, and you have to use it in service of other people”.
Black Lives Matter was begun in 2012 by three African American women; Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi under the guiding principles of “ensuring that the Black Lives Matter network is a black women-affirming space free from sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness”. Yet in 2015 the #SayHerName campaign was founded in response to the hanging of Sandra Bland: an eerie re-enactment of a 20th Century lynching. The campaign sought to be a reminder that black women can also be victims of police violence, just as the male martyrs of the Black Lives Matter movement. MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and SayHerName are all hugely important movements, but they need not compete with each other, or with white feminists, for space. Cullors herself shows her belief in the interlinking of all: “Not only are we unapologetically black…but we are also Queer and Trans-led and non-patriarchal”.
Racism, like misogyny, does not exist in a political and social vacuum. Just as feminism should benefit all genders, classes, and ethnicities, so anti-racism movements should do the same. All forms of oppression are enforced through the same denial of space and agency, in order to prop up a system of profit. George Floyd was not murdered in a vacuum, but to the background of millions of deaths.
Diversity is not just a sign of solidarity, but a political resource. When you diversify your movement, you draw on a larger set of experiences and understandings. This means that discussion is wider and more varied, so political decisions are subject to more debate and scrutiny. Diversification also expands the potential participant base, and so more and a broader set of people can be encouraged into political action. Just as we find it unacceptable when photos are released of an all-male committee making laws on abortion, so should the idea of an all-white group of women deciding what the next feminist campaign should look like.
During the 2017 Women’s March, nearly two million people marched on some of the biggest cities in the US, including Washington, and Los Angeles, and no one was arrested. Yet in the 2016 Black Lives Matter marches, hundreds of unarmed and non-violent black protesters were arrested, including Fenit Nirappil and Wesley Lowery. This is an example of white privilege, and a testament to the power of protection that white feminists could provide to their black counterparts. When white women gather no one expects violence, and so an ideological shift away from white-centred feminism has the potential to invest black rights activists with the privilege of protection. Both the Women’s March and Black Lives Matter were founded by women to express their anger against a system that took away their bodily control. Modern feminists have mustered an enormous amount of energy and are mobile across the world, but they must now capitalise on this energy to aid those who they have previously marginalised.
Black Lives Matter is a movement about black people in the USA but its sentiments are universal. George Floyd has become an international symbol of oppression: of violence against black people, and of the systemic bias against all minorities. The brutality of the US police force is merely a symptom of a system that operates on the power and privilege of a select few. The current protests are an opportunity for the feminist movement to demonstrate itself as truly intersectional: to re-write its past wrongs, and to fight for the rights of all who are suffering under the worldwide system of oppression.
The urgent need for white feminists to realise this is beautifully put by Audre Lorde years before the conception of Black Lives Matter or MeToo:
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you.
For our part, we will be re-educating ourselves on the history of colonisation, slavery, and civil rights. We will provide a platform for people of colour to publish on this blog, we will sign petitions, and we will donate as best we can.
Book recommendations:
Audre Lorde, ‘A Burst of Light’
Angela Saini, ‘The Return of Race Science’
Nikesh Shukla, ‘The Good Immigrant’
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, ‘Americanah’
Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘The Namesake’
Bernardine Evaristo, ‘Girl, Woman, Other’
Caroline Criado-Perez, ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’
Some suggested petitions: