The State of Feminism

The whole feminist thing comes up because they really, truly are trying to put women back in the kitchen and having babies. Really. It's not like a myth of suggesting, "Wouldn't it be nice if you had more babies," it’s if we had more white babies. I was with Kimberlé Crenshaw on the Win with Black Women call last night, and I heard her talking about how you cannot fake this anymore: the basic thing is anti-Black, anti-color. They need white women to have white babies. That's what is afoot. If we don't have feminism, that's exactly what we have.

So I would say that our feminism needs to be of a wider lens and a deeper lens. I was shocked recently, as I'm doom scrolling, to realize how narrow the input in my information base. That's one of the things that we really have to do, is to widen the input. The feminism that we have cannot be narrow scoped anymore. It really has to open up and we have to make sure that we're getting input. And understanding that 300,000 Black women lost their jobs, so that has to be a part of whatever the feminists are doing. We have to understand that Black women and women of color generally are in dire straits and are afraid not only about losing their jobs but about losing their lives. Because the threats against us are very physical. So that's what I say: feminism has got to have a wider lens this time around. It really has to be an inclusive lens. And you really have to know that the biggest target is a woman of color, I don’t care what color.

These remarks have been edited for clarity and length. Portions of these remarks appeared at Women’s Media Center.