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Critical Reading of Smith’s Paper
Racism and Women’s studies
by Lina Omar
April 10, 2011
Racism and Women’s Studies
Barbara Smith
Barbara Smith:
Born in 1946, she is a black lesbian feminist who has played a significant role in building and sustaining Black Feminism in the United States. She fought sexism, racism and homophobia. Since the early 1970s she has been active as an innovative critic, teacher, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and publisher of Black feminist thought. In 1974, Smith co-founded the Cohambee River Collective in Boston, a community-based black feminist group. She also co-founded the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1980.
Argument:
In her paper Smith argues about Racism as an issue in women’s studies and women’s movement.
Key points:
- Racism and feminism and women’s studies
- Why racism is a feminist issue?
- The roadblocks that stand in the way of feminism : (Professionalism, Anti-feminism, homophobia).
- Activism, Activism and Activism
Critical Study of “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: The Creativity Of Black Women in the South”
By Alice Walker
By : Razan Al Saket
Black women in the south lived in the darkest depths of oppression, and yet managed to maintain their creativity for next generations. The role of the new generations is to excavate and dig up to find the legacy of their ancestors.
I. The conditions of black women in the south
A. Black women were exploited by the white.
B. They were viewed as solely “the mule of the world.”
C. They were only bodies to be used for work or impregnation.
D. The world denied them the means to learn how to read and write.
II. The creativity of black women in the south
A. They had very deep and intense creativity.
B. The world tried to break them away from their creativity and dig them deeper into their work.
C. Their spirituality found no relief. As a result, they suffered from spiritual waste.
III. Phillis Wheatley
A. Wheatley was a black poet in the 1700s.
B. Black people blame her for not reflecting their actual conditions in her poetry
C. Walker defends Wheatley.
D. The ideas mentioned in Wheatley’s poetry were not her own. They were forced upon her.
E. Her gifts for poetry were thwarted by contrary instincts.
F. Wheatley’s true achievement is that she managed to keep her creativity alive.
IV. The creativity of black women was kept alive year after year, and generation after generation.
A. They expressed their creativity through singing, quilting or planting their gardens, which were the only ways available to them.
B. They left the new generations with a sealed letter they could not read.
V. Alice Walker’s mother
A. Her mother had to work in the fields for long hours, and had to take care of her eight children.
B. Her only way to feed her creativity was taking care of her gardens.
VI. The spiritual bridge between Walker and her mother
A. While searching of her mother’s gardens, Walker found her own creativity.
B. Walker absorbed the legacy of her mother and expressed it in her fiction.
Critical Reading of Sisterhood: Political Solidarity between Women
By Dareen Hattar
Argument:
Women’s solidarity is achieved by eliminating and unlearning the barriers of sexism, racism, and classism.
Key Points
Male supremacist ideology.
Barriers against women’s solidarity.
• Sexism
• Racism
• Classism
Ways to overcome these barriers.
The true meaning of solidarity.