My thoughts

This readings have to be some of my favorite to date as a Women's Studies major at Spelman College. Patricia Hill Collins short reading definitely did not mean that it was by any means lacking content. She shared some similar views that my classmates have expressed earlier this academic school year. When speaking about an Afrocentric feminist philosophy she made sure to speak about scholars, artists, and everyday people who live in this world and can vocalize their feeling as well. She quoted Alice Walker speaking about Zora Neale Hurston despite her education refused to abandon "common' people (505). This leads me to think about some of the language of the articles we have read in class, who are they for and who do they benefit?

Working with the theory that only a Caucasian male epistemology is valid in our culture, who are these reading for? Even though I personally believe it is politically incorrect to dismiss thoughts because of the gender and race of a person, our Euro-centric society still gets to decide which black thinkers are the exception rather than the rule. Not to say that because black women have an ideology that they should automatically be over valued, which is why I loved this article. Sometimes I feel in classes I get only one side of the story and feminism is about looking at ALL different perspectives. After reading the first piece on feminism and biology, we determined that in our society science is regarded as an absolute truth, but Collins argue there are know absolute truths in feminism because of the diversity within any group or term.

The Combahee River Collective reminded me of the book Mariana’s in Combat, something I had to read for Women in Social Movements. Through action, these women changed the roles of women and the perspective men in their country had for women. Patriarchy no longer benefited the Cuban Revolution. Now even though this change was a means to win a war, it was still change. In the opening of the article this quote hit home for me. “The most general statement of our politics at this present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based up on the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking” (Combahee River Collective 232). I am curious, does change occur only with a huge event such as a war?