Thread by @jackfrombkln

Misogynoir.

Whew.

Two days ago I talked about #whitesupremacy. Yesterday I talked about #patriarchy.

Combine those two toxins and you get misogynoir, the vile poison suffered by women of color, and more specifically, black women.

Yesterday I joked and told a friend the amount of rum it would take for me to discuss #misogynoir would put me in a coma. I wish that was funny. I don’t want to write about this sober. I’m not qualified to discuss this with nuance and deftness.

Also, I am out of rum.

Coined by a queer black feminist Moya Bailey, misogynoir lies at the heart of all of what we think of as intersectional.

If you could imagine a Venn diagram that displays the overlap of racism, sexism, transphobia, & homophobia, the cruel bullseye at its center is misogynoir.

For everyone who’s watched @HandmaidsOnHulu and thought: that is predictive of what will happen in this country as they attempt to strip women of the right to determine their own reproductive rights:

You’re wrong.

@HandmaidsOnHulu It’s not a dystopian future, it’s the actual history of black women in this country.

Part of the essential process of colonizing the Caribbean and the Americas was the systemic rape of Indigenous and African women.

@HandmaidsOnHulu Officially, the import of African slaves was banned in 1808, not for any altruistic reason, but for a fiduciary one:

It was simply more profitable to breed slaves than to buy them.

Black women's names were taken from them, their identity as humans all but erased.

@HandmaidsOnHulu They were treated like brood sows, their babies ripped from their arms at the moment of birth, and assigned deeds of property instead of birth certificates.

Black women were bred like cattle. Slaves, not tobacco or cotton, was the South’s most profitable industry.

@HandmaidsOnHulu At it’s peak, port cities like Richmond VA were exporting between 10,000-20,000 slaves per month.

The right to treat black and brown women’s bodies as possessions is in the DNA of this country.

Racism and sexism have acted as force multipliers for their oppression.

@HandmaidsOnHulu From Sarah Baartman who was paraded around in a cage like an animal for her beauty, to the pervasive portrayal of black women as hypersexual (by the men who were raping them), misogynoir is (& has been) a cudgel used to beat these indomitable women into submission for centuries.

@HandmaidsOnHulu There’s nothing subtle about misogynoir.

Malcolm X once said The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The list of grievances that are both racist and sexist black and brown women face daily exceeds my ability to convey.

@HandmaidsOnHulu I don’t want to create labor for any black or brown women reading this. I don’t want the indignities suffered daily to be entertainment.

@HandmaidsOnHulu If there are any women of color reading this who feel safe sharing their experiences (both muted and profane) for the purpose of enlightenment and edification, please do so in the comments.

@HandmaidsOnHulu Hopefully, men and women of good intent will share your thoughts, and develop demonstrable empathy for your pain, and unshakable respect for your dignity, compassion, and endurance.

This invite is open ONLY to women of color. Comments by anyone else will be summarily deleted.

@HandmaidsOnHulu