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Response to Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism

Thompson’s article clarified for me, a feeling I have had since I started this class. My understanding of the feminist movements before taking this class has been very skewed. Until taking this course, I never thought to question the narrative which either excludes/ignores the issue of race from the feminist movements or presents non-white feminisms as a reaction to white or “mainstream” feminism.

Overall, Thompson clearly articulates this widespread misunderstanding. Additionally, by citing specific vocabulary, history, authors and groups, Thompson offers a much fuller view of the important role of women of color in the history of second-wave feminism. She also outlines the pitfalls of hegemonic feminist thinking and quotes women of color on their opinions of the exclusion of women of color in feminist movements.

However, I find parts of her article are still somehow lacking. The title of the article, Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism suggests that she is writing specifically about the omission of women of color in the narrative of the feminist movements. In her article, however, she has a tendency to continuously pair women of color with working-class women, militant white women, and anti-racist feminists.

Plainly, I think this approach to the subject subtly continues the marginalization of the feminisms of women of color. Lots of parts of the article speak to the singularity and importance of multiracial feminism, but her pivots back to white contribution seem to undermine it.

Certainly it is important to discuss how white women can, and have been successful allies to women of color, but I felt the amount of space devoted to this topic in the article was unnecessary. I thought the article was meant to specifically discuss the exclusion of women of color, from the historical narrative of Second-Wave Feminism and their contributions and importance in that movement. I felt that the extensive discussion of white, anti-racist feminists was out of place in the article and didn’t directly serve the point.

Third Wave Feminists Before Second Wave Feminism

 

In Recasting Second Wave Feminism, Thompson highlights that stories of “militant anti-racist women” have been excluded from the history of second wave feminism. Thompson argues that second wave feminism excludes the stories of many like those of Assata Shakur, Marilyn Buck, and Angela Davis. It seems as if histories of radicalism are suppressed and re-suppressed. Through my researching work I’ve been looking at radical feminists during the Harlem Renaissance. One woman who stuck out to me is Mae Mallory. She was revolutionary and political prisoner a good 10 years before Angela Davis got on the scene. While she was the first real political prisoner of the civil rights era, sentenced to 20 years in prison for “kidnapping” an elderly white KKK couple, her radical history is rarely listened to. She was a part of the Black NRA, she fought with the Freedom Riders, she worked with Black Nationalists, Malcolm X, Communists, she did what ever she could do to fight for freedom. Mallory didn’t fit into any boxes. She was too radical (didn’t agree with everything MLK had to say). She wasn’t radical enough (didn’t agree with everything the Black Pathers did either). Her wikipedia entry calls her a desegregationist because she fought to put her daughter in a white school, but she didn’t care for integration, she just wanted her daughter to take all the classes she would need to get into college. She didn’t act like how we expect women, Black, or heterosexual people to act. What’s more, she doesn’t fit into any periodization of 2nd wave feminism that Thompson recommends. So, we forget about her. I leave this article left wondering where we put her life and her work. When we comb through history and give it names and stars, it seems as if we’re doomed to forget radicals that were too radical. What do we do with 3rd wave feminists who fought for justice before the 2nd wave had even begun?