Two months ago, London-born author-journalist and activist Reni Eddo-Lodge was the first Black British author to top the UK book charts. In addition to her being well-known for her book Why I’m No Longer Talking White People About Race, it was this text among others that inspired my dissertation on race-identity politics. I have reread the chapter ‘Histories’ countless times and come to the idea that current discourse on race and Black history is not as intersectional as it could be. Historically, I have seen Black History Month celebrations where women that do not fit into the cisgender, neurotypical, able-bodied, and / or heterosexual norms of society get side-lined.

Additionally, how we as a society oversimplify the Black Lives Matter movement as just a race issue baffles me.  

In 2010, Black queer feminist Moya Bailey coined the term misogynoir – phrase denoting discrimination against Black-racialised women where both race and gender play roles of bias. Reni Eddo-Lodge becoming the first Black British author to top the UK book charts is an indictment in two ways:

1. It took this long for a Black British author to reach the top
2. It took this long for a Black British woman to reach the top

Even ahead of Malorie Blackman, Bernadine Evaristo, Zadie Smith, and the late Small Island writer-author Andrea Levy.

Are not enough people buying books by Black British (female) authors or are they simply being denied access to publishing houses? Systemic discrimination in publishing is a criticism blessed by history, where English literature in the 18^th, 19^th and the 20^th centuries was dominated by white men. At this time, many women wrote under pseudonyms, as the system would not take their authentic voices and selves seriously, as women.  

Whilst I am a man, my mother is a woman and so are my grandmothers. My godmother is a Black female academic with stories of her own about misogynoir in higher education and the British school system. My late aunt was an actor-singer. I have female cousins who also have stories about misogynoir in arts, corporate, healthcare and other parts of society. I know, having been raised by Black women that this discrimination is endemic and I know Black men are complicit in as well – from hearing Black men labelling Black women as “high maintenace” to perpetuating colourism.

Does Black History Month and how Black history is taught play a role? Is the way we study Black history inclusive, or, despite ticking the race box, does it follow cisgender, neurotypical, able-bodied, heterosexual (very always male) norms? Are we doing everything we can in the narrative of Black historical scholarship to implement intersectionality?  

In her essay (1989: 140), Kimberlé Crenshaw coins that buzzterm of today intersectionality. She writes “any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.” Today, we can read this to the experiences of Black women on the autism spectrum; Black women who are transgender; Black women who are working class with disabilities.

How we view Black women’s history is troubling, as diversities of their experiences are being excluded from the story for “a more comfortable” cisgender, straight, male and / or able-bodied norm. Whilst we criticise white institutions for not doing diversity work, we must be careful as to not look like hypocrites, embodying our very own Prof. Coupland. One example is the slave narrative. In the teaching of the Slave Trade (when it’s actually taught), are we pushing for the inclusion of Black women experiences?

Despite learning of the Underground Railroad, I would also have liked to have learned about slavery’s darker side, including rape on the plantations and the histories of enslaved mothers as wet nurses for white children, often at the expense of their own. Moreover, slavery as an economics system, and “Black women’s reproductive systems were industrialised. Children born into slavery were the default property of slaveowners, and this meant limitless labour at no extra cost” (Eddo-Lodge, 2017: 4). A system where they were exploited on the basis of their race and sex.  

Whilst, I would caution educators about relegating Black women’s histories during the years of slavery into narratives of sexual violence with no counter balance (i.e female empowerment), these are also stories pertinent to the lives of women today, not just Black women. In light of #MeToo, would it be so wrong to investigate human history of sexual violence? If we did that, we would then be forced to interrogate women’s history at war, for example. What about sex workers during the World War One? Today, intersectionality may bend to age’s links with race, sex and “the adultification of Black girls” (Center on Poverty and Inequality, 2017).  

Using Reni Eddo-Lodge’s achievement as a conduit, I would argue there is no way we can achieve lasting change without the inclusion and amplification of Black women voices, who are themselves constantly hitting glass ceilings across all of society. This must include intersectional approaches to the Black past and anti-racist work. Whilst as a Black man I hit the glass ceiling, I can see through it. However, I know for my Black female colleagues this is a bleak look into the opaque.  

The spine of the Black Lives Matter movement is unarguably kept together by Black, female leadership, as is the bulk of equalities work in academia with Black and brown academics. In revealing how Black women were agents in key moments of British history, including immeasurable contributions to civil rights movements and politics, we will understand

the history Black women are making now, truly embodying Black Britain and reimagining Black liberation. And it is in this train of thought, I believe when Black women matter, everyone will matter; when they win, everyone wins.  

Referencing  

Center on Poverty and Inequality (2017). Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girl’s Childhood. Washington D.C: Georgetown Law. 

Crenshaw, K (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1(8), pp. 139-167.  

Eddo-Lodge, R (2017). Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury. Print.