An end to the neglect of the problems of the Negro woman!

by Claudia Jones

http://ucf.digital.flvc.org/islandora...

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Race, Politics, History, Theory, Essays

20 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 1949

About the author

Claudia Jones, née Claudia Vera Cumberbatch (21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964), was a Trinidad-born journalist. As a child she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a political activist and black nationalist through Communism, using the false name Jones as "self-protective disinformation". As a result of her political activities, she was deported in 1955 and subsequently resided in the United Kingdom. She founded Britain's first black newspaper, The West Indian Gazette, in 1958.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a necessary read for all leftists. Jones addresses the triple oppression and super exploitation of Black women under capitalism and the ensuing political and social results, thoroughly demonstrating a theory of race, sex, and class long before it became known as intersectionality. Much of the text reads as though it was published today; namely, the gross neglect of Black women in virtually all echelons of society - including, still, relegation to domestic work - and the ongoing problem of the refusal of white Communists to include Black women in their activism. A must-read for understanding revolutionary movements.

[Ife]

Claudia Jones' 1949 'An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!' is a seminal piece of Black Marxist feminist thought that looks forward to Angela Davis' Women, Race & Class, Michele Wallace's Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Patricia Hill Collin's 'Controlling Images', and many other texts and ideas that have become cornerstones of Black feminist thinking. Examining the condition of Black women in the United States as a form of superexploitation she takes up questions such as why more Black women are not engaged in militant organizing given their exploited condition, leading her to a critique of racism in Marxist spaces.

Like Angela Davis she examines the role of domestic labour in the lives of Black women looking at discrepancies between the earnings of Black and white women, as well as the fact that Black women have always done labour against the backdrop of contrary white feminist presumption of female domesticity.

In an extremely forward thinking move she anticipates Collin's controlling images with a brief articulation of how media images contribute to ideas of which labour is suited for Black women:

Inherently connected with the question of job opportunities where the Negro woman is concerned, is the special oppression she faces as Negro, as woman, and as worker. She is the victim of the white chauvinist stereotype as to where her place should be. In the film, radio, and press, the Negro woman is not pictured in her real role as breadwinner, mother, and protector of the family, but as a traditional “mammy” who puts the care of children and families of others above her own. This traditional stereotype of the Negro slave mother, which to this day appears in commercial advertisements, must be combatted and rejected as a device of the imperialists to perpetuate the white chauvinist ideology that Negro women are “backward,” “inferior,” and the “natural slaves” of others.

One thing I find interesting about this paper is that she frames her argument as a case for white progressives to recognize Black women's latent militant power and to make their spaces conducive for Black women to enter and actualize this power. This suggests that Black women back then were seen as not radical enough or otherwise not worth reaching out to for mobilization. Nowadays it would appear that Black women's revolutionary power is extractively engaged with, fetishized, and indeed vaunted within progressive spaces. What an interesting turn! I also find Jones' analysis of Black women in mass organizations very enlightening.

A must-read of Black feminist intellectual history and I am glad to have discovered this via Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought

[Michael Skora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt a lot like a precursor to the Combahee River Collective Statement that is (of course) much more particular to the conditions and context of the 1940s. Different "Left-progressive" groups are the focus of attention for these two essays (the suffrage movement, Black legal institutions, pre-CIO union organizations, and the Communist Party for Jones and "second-wave" feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party, and socialist groups for the CRC), but the intersectional critiques remain the same. Even the most revolutionary of groups repeatedly fail to incorporate the perspectives of Black women, whose challenges are thus neglected.

The oppression of domestic workers in particular held Jone's attention: many New Deal social programs excluded domestic laborers, who were disproportionally Black women and at risk of unemployment. Jones also elaborates on the miserable conditions of this work, often unprotected by union or labor rights. The Domestic Workers Union and other defensive organizations are likewise ostracized from the greater labor movement. More extremely relevant and contemporary issues are also explored in this piece: elite capture from the U.S. government and other dominant institutions, the criminalization of Black women's defense against white supremacy in the case of Rosa Lee Ingram, and the hypocrisy of the U.S. government's promotion of "democracy" as a foreign promotion strategy despite its at-best performative acceptance of that term's implications.

I believe that Jones most stressed that solidarity through widespread political consciousness was the most important way to eventually overthrow oppressive institutions such as misogynoir, capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism. As a corollary, she repeatedly stressed that white chauvinism is an immense hindrance to this consciousness. Negligence of Black woman's issues is primary embodiment of this issue within progressive movements, alongside demeaning and disrespectful interpersonal relations between majority-white groups and Black activists.

[Arelí · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A developing consciousness on the woman question today, therefore, must not fail to recognize that the Negro question in the United States is prior to, and not equal to, the woman question; that only to the extent that we fight all chauvinist expressions and actions as regards the Negro people and fight for the full equality of the Negro people, can women as a whole advance their struggle for equal rights”- Claudia Jones

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, even if it's very depressing. Jones clearly outlines the problems facing African American women in the 1940s and honestly, they've merely been shuffled to different arenas, but still largely exist. There's an immediacy to her writing that is striking, just overall a sad but illuminating read.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A watershed work in the connection between Marxism-Leninism and the struggles of Black women. This is really not even a book, merely an essay of just under 20 pages, but it is foundational in the study of what we now call intersectionality. Claudia Jones called it "triple oppression": being Black, being a woman, and being a worker. In the 1980s, Kimberle Crenshaw called it "intersectionality".

Of course there is much to say about intersectionality and how, in the neoliberal hellscape we live in, intersectionality has been co-opted and bastardized by people who want to use it to advocate for more gay CEOs and people of color committing war crimes in the U.S. military -- all the more reason to read this critical essay and discover the essence of what intersectionality truly derives from. Black women have historically faced the worst of the worst of oppression in this colonized nation (and to add onto that: Black trans women face the highest rates of concentrated violence today), from chattel slavery up until Claudia Jones wrote this in the 1940s, and it has persisted into today, some 75 years later.

What I love about this is that Claudia Jones is not afraid to take to task anyone for their systematic mistreatment of Black women, including fellow Communists (and of course, now looking back at the track record of the CPUSA and Black workers, this totally tracks); she was absolutely not afraid of criticism -- none of us should be, but so many of us are.

I literally cannot overstate the importance of this essay. In the Multinational Communist Party (multinationalcp(dot)org), we are teaching this to potential recruits right out of the gate. It's mandatory. It should be mandatory for everyone. Especially now in the face of fascists like Ron DeSantis trying to crush Black history.

[Alice Quach · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this an amazing read is not only how easy it was to understand but how relevant it is. We still see these same themes and trends existing today, especially when Black women are neglected in society. Jones addresses intersectionality (being Black, a woman, and a worker) way before the term became coined. This is a must-read for understanding revolutionary movements and the lived experiences of Black women.

[to’ar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Claudia Jones, a Black communist immigrant woman, was a pioneer in intersectional feminism before the term intersectionality was even conceived. This essay was published in 1949 (way before Lorde, Davis, hooks and the likes) and should be THE canon text of "intersectionality". Most "intersectional" works fail to take class into account as the primary element that intersects with other forms of oppression.

[Nmcf · Rating 5 out of 5]

DSA needs to read.

[fowzia. · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it <3 can’t wait to read her biography.

[mUdd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it

[Sammie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read, a lot of historical context, some points I find quite repetitious. I also think the CPUSA today has done a poor job in truly living up to Claudia Jones