Merf. Thinking is Hard.

On the one hand, we have been told that black women, in slavery and afterward, were formidable people, “matriarchs,” in fact. And yet we know that all along, black women were dreadfully exploited. Rarely has so much power been attributed to so vulnerable a group.

The contradiction can be resolved, with sufficient attention to definition and evidence […]. But it needs to be understood from the beginning that the term “matriarch” would never have been applied to black women in the first place were it not for our culture’s touchiness over reduced male authority within the family. It is a telling fact that matriarchy has most often been used as a relative term. That is, women are called matriarchs when the power they exercise relative to the men of their own group is in some respect greater than that defined as appropriate by the dominant culture. Given this standard, women need not be the equals of men, much less men’s superiors, in order to qualify as matriarchs. The acquisition by women of just one commonly masculine prerogative will do, and hence it becomes possible to attribute matriarchal power to some of society’s most disadvantaged people. The woman who had no vote, no money, and no protection under the law was nonetheless a “matriarch,” so long as she also had no man present to compete with for authority over her children.

When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.

When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.