Speaker: Caitlin Reed Wiesner, Department of Humanities, Mercy University - Speaker's Personal Website, Academia.edu

Abstract: »Rape committed by Black men remained unspeakable for Black women through much of the twentieth century, as these assaults risked reinforcing the destructive stereotype of Black men as incorrigible rapists. This paper points to a momentous shift that took place in the early 1970s, when a resurgence of organized Black feminism made intracommunal rape a necessary, if fraught, topic for testimony. The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and The National Alliance of Black Feminists (NABF) folded anti-rape activism into their agendas and did not shy from implicating Black men in sexual assault. As they did so, they refused the framework of “Black-on-Black crime” popularized by non-feminist Black women’s groups, such as the Coalition of Concerned Women in the War on Crime (CCWWC). Such groups interpreted intraracial rape as a symptom of a sudden moral collapse in Black America that was unrelated to systemic oppression. They demanded increased police intervention in the Black spaces as an immediate remedy. Conversely, Black feminists developed what Combahee River Collective co-founder Barbara Smith termed “a nuanced Black women’s perspective on violence against women” that compelled them to think carefully about harnessing the power of a state that was openly hostile towards Black bodies. They minimized law enforcement collaboration in favor of community education and self-help practices that attacked antiBlackness, misogynoir, and multiple jeopardy that, as theorist Treva B. Lindsey explains, renders Black women’s lives unlivable. This praxis also departed from the white-dominated feminist anti-rape movement that was increasingly partnering with crime control entities.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of the Americas: History of the United States / History of the United States (1964–1980) | Feminism: Feminism in the United States / Black feminism | Feminist organizations: Feminist organizations in the United States / National Black Feminist Organization | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in the United States