Race Trumps Gender: The Thomas Nomination in the Black Community

Abstract

Race and gender are intimately intertwined in the lives of Black women in the United States. Race constructs the way Black women experience gender; gender constructs the way Black women experience race. In the Senate hearings that pitted the word of Clarence Thomas against the sexual harassment accusations of Anita Hill, the great majority of Black women did not believe Hill's accusations. Our analysis will set this disbelief against a background of substantial Black unity on political issues in the United States, Black feminism, television coverage of the event, and Black women's reactions to that television coverage. Contrary to the conclusion one might reasonably form from the primary White composition of all the major feminist organizations, Black women have usually given stronger support to the women's movement than Whites on surveys (see Table for self-identification as “feminist”). Even as early as 1970, 60% of Black women said they supported efforts to strengthen women's status in society, compared to only 37% of White women (Klein 1987: 26), and in 1972 67% said they were sympathetic to women's liberation groups, compared to only 35% of White women (hooks 1981: 148). Also contravening the impression one might form from the composition of feminist organizations, poor women and working class women are as likely as middle-class women to say on these surveys that they consider themselves “feminist.” The survey data are supported by indepth interviews among all classes of Black women.

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