"Black women rarely had hold of the microphone, sometimes because of sexism, but they wrote the speeches, they organized the marches, planned the boycotts, took part in the sit-ins and demonstrations, and were beaten, arrested, sexually assaulted, and dehumanized for their efforts alongside the men."

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Black women are among the most steadfastly religious groups in the nation, yet it is precisely because they receive the brunt of sexualized racist stereotyping and objectification that they have become more vocal in atheist organizing. In addition, black women non-believers are continuing a long tradition (ironically fostered in the Black Church and other religious civic and charitable organizations) of community organizing and outreach. And, like their religious foremothers, they are encountering some of the same sexist opposition and resistance to women’s leadership:

I believe women are at the forefront…because we’re willing to stand up and take the hit. There are quite a few men out there that could stand up but they’re not. I often detect some anti-feminist resentment that won’t respect what I have to say. One of the gentlemen in my group will say the same thing I have to say and he will be respected and I won’t. We still have the same patriarchal mindset as those in the religious community.

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Representation matters. It changes minds and cements biases. Individual black women are more likely to be viewed as representatives of their race by the majority culture. Black women and girls do suffer from seeing limited and/or relentlessly negative reflections of themselves in the media. Those limited images do reinforce stereotypes about black women and often prevent people from recognizing their humanity. And those stereotypes do burden black women in their real, everyday lives.

What can we do about that?

Policing the behavior of black women is not the answer. If it is wrong for a contemporary black actress to portray a maid, what message are we sending to black women who do domestic work? If it is wrong to be shown having sex with white men, what does that say about black women in interracial relationships with white men? If Erykah Badu is a whore for having children out of wedlock, what does that say about all black single mothers? Indeed, since more than half of births to all women under 30 occur outside of marriage (regardless of race), what does it say about women as a whole?

The goal of respectability politics may be noble, but the execution is flawed, damaging, and ineffective. By indulging in respectability politics, we acquiesce to the racially biased idea that the actions of individual black people are representative of the whole. We add to the pre-existing burdens of racism and sexism. And we fail to solve our problem, because we move the responsibility for eradicating race and gender biases from the powerful institutions and systems that perpetrate them to those oppressed by them. It is easier to try to control the oppressed than challenge the oppressor, but it is rarely a humane or useful approach.

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"The notion that struggling against or eliminating racism will completely alleviate Black women’s problems does not take into account the way that sexual oppression cuts across all racial, nationality, age, religious, ethnic and class groupings. … If we have to wait for racism to be obliterated before we can begin to address sexism, we will be waiting for a long time."

"True the Black woman did the housework, the drudgery; true, she reared the children, often alone, but she did all of that while occupying a place on the job market, a place her mate could not get or which his pride would not let him accept.And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself."

"The boycott could have taken place when he offended Latino women, Black women, or any of the hundreds of groups he spoke of in such nonsensical fashion over the years. Now that the privileged white woman was attacked, it appears that Rush Limbaugh has only recently crossed the line of disgust. This is because Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party have made Sandra Fluke a symbol of the woman, a hero of sorts. Rush Limbaugh’s attack now is seen as more devious, because (talking to other-than-colored folk) he attacked your sister, your wife, or maybe even you; It has gotten personal."

"Dream Hampton explained to me about how this is a time when women are fighting for their rights, and here’s a video that describes an assault. I’m actually a very knowledgeable brother, but Dream schooled me in the conversation. It really opened up my eyes to something I had not known about. She told me that if we were kids at a pool and I ran by and yanked her top down, it wouldn’t be a joke or a prank to her – that would be a traumatic incident, and it is along the lines of sexual assault. As little boys, we’re running around tapping girl’s a**es like it’s funny, but they’re really victimized by it. I learned that it’s not a joking matter. I feel like I needed that education because had I not, I could’ve continued thinking that it is a joke. Even with my music filled with misogyny, I still have morals."

"The common assertion is that Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. But we must confront this assertion, because each time we confine her memory to that moment we erase part of her admirable character, strategic intellect and indomitable spirit.
To be clear, Rosa Parks left us a deliberate legacy of activism, not an accidental activist moment. Furthermore, she, like many other Black women, should not be remembered in the shadows of Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. or any other Black male civil rights activist, but rather right alongside of them. We must realize and teach that when Rosa Parks was helping lay the foundation for the civil rights movement, Dr. King was still in high school.
At the intersection of sexism and racism, it is not surprising that we remember Rosa Parks as demure and delicate, since the image of her sitting quietly with her hands folded politely in her lap is commonplace. However, if we get beyond our stereotypical expectations of who a Black woman can be, we bear witness to her steely grace and steadfast commitment to defending human dignity. She had been doing so for years before she ever got on that bus."