How We Get Free:
A Guide to Political Action
How We Get Free, The Combahee River Collective Statement by Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor is a map to political activism. The author capitalizes on The Combahee River Collective Statement (referred to as 'the CRC' throughout this paper) through historically framed interviews with members of the CRC, which provide a personal history to the cause, as well as provide support to the goals and concepts of the CRC. The CRC states that if all systems abusing the "most oppressed" are dismantled, then you will have liberated all oppressed peoples; It seeks to provide a guide to action against oppression. In order to dismantle current oppressive systems, I would like to explore reasons why systems have become sturdy and resistant to change, and possible solutions to ending oppressive systems through investigating the ways in which bias and intention in education and social spheres scandalize influence on a person’s ability to understand identity and oppression.
As stated previously, The Combahee River Collective Statement believes that if all systems abusing the "most oppressed" are dismantled, then you will have liberated all oppressed peoples. In order to inspire political action, it calls for solidarity across differing identities in order to gather power against oppressive forces. This all "…to strengthen the political commitments from other groups by getting them to recognize the different struggles were related to each other and connected under capitalism. It called for greater awareness and understanding, not less." Through understanding an array of intersectional identities and the oppressive experiences connected to those, we are able to create bridges for solidarity with those identities and experiences, and in due time, give rise to the end of oppressive experiences.
The CRC identifies "identity politics" (a term which they coined) as a clear indicator of one's ability to understand and act on oppression. The CRC argues that oppression on the basis of identity is a source for political radicalization, ultimately enlisting the CRC in "the personal is political" logic. Here is a quote from Barbara Smith’s Interview:
"This slogan was not just about "lifestyle" issues, as it came to be popularly understood, rather it was initially about how the experiences within the lives of Black women shaped their political outlook. The experiences of oppression, humiliations, and the indignities created by poverty, racism, and sexism opened Black women up to the possibility of radical and revolutionary politics… Identity politics became a way that those suffering that oppression could become politically active to confront it." A quote from Barbara Smith’s interview. (Taylor, How We Get Free, Pg. 9)
Furthermore, the CRC identifies "class oppression" as an issue, but especially to prevent the popularization of "…middle-class orientation in Black politics that was on the ascent in the 1970s…" (Taylor, How We Get Free, Pg. 9). It has since been researched in examinations of black racial attitudes in the late 1970s and 1980s, a significant class difference "… with respect to political action," (Hwang, Class Differences in Racial Attitudes, p.367). "According to the conflict perspective, the sharing of a common economic position in society is the very basis of group consciousness. The objective differences between groups in terms of life chances, power, and the ability to control one's own life are the foundation on which group differences in world view and opinions are based." (Hwang, p.369).
In this examination, it was found that those who were wealthier middle-class did not identify deeply with lower-class Black Americans, their positions on race and discrimination were in "realignment" with their new class positions, occupying a political space more agreeable to the socially and politically dominant class (Hwang, p.369). It is theorized that those Black Americans undergoing positive class changes adopted the attitudes and world views concerning status and issues from the dominant social group, in essence, adopting white rejections about the significance of racism and discrimination to the ability to live successfully in the system as it exists (Hwang, 370). If those in the experiment had been exposed to methodology like that of the CRC, those perspectives might rather be intersectional. The CRC had a positive influence towards intersectionality in class compared to the social class influence of those above the lower class “forgetting” what they once knew as their truth for a new socially promoted and accepted truth (for example, the belief that those of the lower class simply choose their lifestyle, to explore that these issues are based on race would be preposterous, etc.). The integration of the CRC into the political sphere during the 1970s provides us with one reason for understanding the ways in which bias and intention in education and social spheres scandalize influence on a person’s ability to understand identity and oppression.
When thinking about other ways in which bias and intention influence thought and ability to change, I returned to the section on Issues In Organizing Black Feminists. One major issue the CRC states that a source of difficulty is that Black Feminists are confronting oppression on multiple fronts. Black feminists also do not teem with white privilege and have minimal access to resources and power, since these lie primarily in the hands of the oppressor. The CRC also discusses the following, “The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work and never be underestimated.” I think it is important to emphasize the words “psychological toll of being a Black woman”. I would like to think about this in terms of the psychological toll of being educated in The United States of America generally. Similarly, it is extremely difficult to reach political consciousness for other races who both experience oppression and not. The foundations on which the education system was built are sexist, racist, and classist. The system as it exists today exists to produce industrial age laborers, with the primary goals of learning being, behavior control, mathematic competence, scientific proficiency, and literary comprehension; to become a complicit hypnagogic laborer. The only place where the goals of the education system change are in terms of class. Otherwise, the education system does not seek to understand oppressions against gender identities, races, sexualities, or even acknowledge them, and especially does not work to create people who can fix these issues. I believe the education system is the largest contributor to the preservation of oppressive systems and people. Without education reform, we cannot see the dismantling of oppressive systems and people.
Institutions are often obscured by the local social perception of morality that has become the “social standard”. Although there have been government regulations on education, these regulations are not constructive in creating space for intersectional, anti-racist, anti-toxic-masculine work. These regulations are centered instead around capitalistic goals, which are inherently sexist, racist, and classist. Furthermore, in the past and sometimes still, an un-surprising number of American educational institutions have preserved the narrative that their education is presented without bias and with dutiful, righteous intention. This narrative from education systems has created generations of “unchangeable”, and I would even consider, traumatized people. It is the Stockholm syndrome of American education. If we are trained that the information we receive is without bias and without intention, we become unable to understand a truth other than the first we were presented with. We can see this in a current example, the debate over The United States of America’s greatness. We hear a quote from Michelle Obama in the introduction of How We Get Free, in which she declares, “Don't let anyone ever tell you that this country isn't great, that somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth." As data shows, the United States is far from being the greatest country on Earth, yet we see a large part of the baby boomer generation (1946-1964) feel frustrated with this reality and still claim America’s greatness over all others. This notion was pushed into curricula and taught to students in the American education systems, and only in recent years has it begun to be digested in its truthfulness. As the author states, “…the actual state of the country has never been measured or determined by the wealthiest and most powerful… A more accurate view of the United States comes from the ground, not the perch of the White House.” (Taylor, Pg. 10)
In order to create generational room for political consciousness across non-oppressed identities in the same ways that experiencing intersectional oppression opens people to the possibility of radical and revolutionary politics, we need to dismantle the absence of the awareness of bias and intention in curriculum, which will provide the future generations with the empathetic tools needed for understanding intersectionality, and in time, oppression, and its consequences.
In support of the CRC ideals and goals, I would propose a stance on radical education reform. The provided statement from the CRC and one-on-one interviews brings the importance of one's awareness about bias and intention into light and demonstrates how core beliefs established in education systems affect one's ability to change perspective and thought. The book How We Get Free provides a route to intersectionality and action; to reform and create an equal, education-for-all that is alternately centered around intersectionality, empathy, and we can use these skills to teach about the existence of bias in all sources, the intention behind those sources, how to research validity and position of ideas and sources. When we reach a cross-generational intersectional understanding, we will be able to end oppressive bodies together.
Citations
Hwang, Sean-Shong, et al. “Class Differences in Racial Attitudes: A Divided Black America?”
Sociological Perspectives, vol. 41, no. 2, Sage Publications, Inc., 1998, pp. 367–80, https://doi.org/10.2307/1389482.
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. How We Get Free. Haymarket Books, 2017.
