The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom by Barbara Smith

Author:Barbara Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-05-23T08:02:00+00:00

1992

T H 1.S .1 R I I C' L 1: was written /or the issue of Ms. that irnrnedi- ately followed the October 1991 Senate confirmation Irearints of'Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. It was also included in The Black Scholar's antholoE'y, Court of Appeal: The Black Community Speaks Out on the Racial and Sexual Politics of Thomas vs. Hill.

AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY

TURN ME AROUND

Reflections on the Hill-Thomas Hearings

any Friday evening, the day the Hill-Thomas hearings began, a friend called and said that she wasn't sure why she was so fascinated 'by the proceedings, she could barely tear herself away from the screen. I said it might be because we almost never see more than a few seconds of a real Black woman on television talking about anythingg, let alone the painful realities of racial-sexual politics. Both of us found it compelling simply to watch Anita Hill-bright, sincere, Black, and female-describe what had happened to her hour after hour. Here was someone we recognized, unlike the handful of Black women caricatures who populate the world of television sitcoms. Here was someone we believed.

I can think of no other situation which has commanded the nation's undivided attention that has so clearly illustrated the inextricable links hetween racism and sexism. It's difficult to conceive how the hearings could be understood from anything other than a Black feminist perspective, a perspective which doesn't require the shortchanging of any aspect of Black women's experience and which doesn't assume that racial oppression is more important than sexual oppression or vice versa. But of course Anita Hill's description of sexual harassment was responded to with anything but a Black feminist consciousness, which explains in part why this drama ended as it did.

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