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A review by kevin_shepherd
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
5.0
“This book makes the claim that the internal, psychological, emotional, and personal experiences of Black women are inherently political.” -Melissa Harris-Perry
Sister Citizen is broad and comprehensive in scope. Melissa Harris-Perry writes about the Black female experience and the space Black women occupy at the intersection of race and gender. With remarkable directness and clarity, Harris-Perry gets her points across in a style reminiscent of the great bell hooks and the venerable Audre Lorde.
She expounds on the failure of white feminists to address the inseparable connections between the patriarchy and the racial hierarchy. She delves into the detrimental consequences of “the Angry Black Woman,” “the Mammy,” “the Jezebel,” “the Welfare Queen,” and “the Matriarch” stereotypes. She calls out the race-based inactions of the Bush administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There are very few stones here that are left unturned.
For me, even after Sister Citizen brings to light blood boiling injustices and social inequities and racist tropes, I am confounded most by the inability of many Black women to acknowledge the complicity of the Black church.
BLACK THEOLOGY
“While it may sound like a compliment to assert that [Black] women are the “backbone” of the church, the telling portion of the word backbone is “back.” It has become apparent to me that most of the ministers who use this term have referenced location rather than function.” -Jacquelyn Grant
According to Harris-Perry, a Black woman's religious beliefs are a primary reason why she sometimes accommodates the racial inequities that she encounters. Because a religious Black woman believes that undeserved suffering is redemptive, her faith (usually Christian) becomes a placebo.
Almost universally, it is the women that constitute the overwhelming majority of Black congregations. Also almost universally, the needs of those women in those same congregations are subordinate to the needs of the Black men. Black women are expected to be the strong and capable pillars of the church but are discouraged from becoming its vocal leaders.
“Women were expected to sit in the pews, receiving messages from men in the pulpit. Their role was to recognize God in their pastor, not to expect or demand that he recognize God in them.” -MHP
Although Black women register the highest levels of religiosity of any other demographic, they also register some of the lowest levels of happiness. Black Christianity may have indeed resisted white supremacy in some quarters, but it promoted sexism in its embrace of the myth of the inferiority of women. It is a theology that survives on the false hope that God seeks the liberation of the oppressed, even when all of history tells us otherwise. As Harris-Perry writes, for every Harriet Tubman and every Sojourner Truth there are thousands of Black women who were crushed under the weight of stifling oppression, many of them clutching their bibles in hope of recognition and in hope of reconciliation and in hope of a better life in the next world.
“I know these Baptist ministers ’cause my father was one. I’m not anti-church and I’m not anti-religious but if you go down Highway 49 all the way into Jackson, going through Drew, Ruleville, Blaine, Indianola, Moorhead, all over you’ll see just how many churches are selling out to the white power structure.” -Fannie Lou Hamer
Sister Citizen is broad and comprehensive in scope. Melissa Harris-Perry writes about the Black female experience and the space Black women occupy at the intersection of race and gender. With remarkable directness and clarity, Harris-Perry gets her points across in a style reminiscent of the great bell hooks and the venerable Audre Lorde.
She expounds on the failure of white feminists to address the inseparable connections between the patriarchy and the racial hierarchy. She delves into the detrimental consequences of “the Angry Black Woman,” “the Mammy,” “the Jezebel,” “the Welfare Queen,” and “the Matriarch” stereotypes. She calls out the race-based inactions of the Bush administration in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There are very few stones here that are left unturned.
For me, even after Sister Citizen brings to light blood boiling injustices and social inequities and racist tropes, I am confounded most by the inability of many Black women to acknowledge the complicity of the Black church.
BLACK THEOLOGY
“While it may sound like a compliment to assert that [Black] women are the “backbone” of the church, the telling portion of the word backbone is “back.” It has become apparent to me that most of the ministers who use this term have referenced location rather than function.” -Jacquelyn Grant
According to Harris-Perry, a Black woman's religious beliefs are a primary reason why she sometimes accommodates the racial inequities that she encounters. Because a religious Black woman believes that undeserved suffering is redemptive, her faith (usually Christian) becomes a placebo.
Almost universally, it is the women that constitute the overwhelming majority of Black congregations. Also almost universally, the needs of those women in those same congregations are subordinate to the needs of the Black men. Black women are expected to be the strong and capable pillars of the church but are discouraged from becoming its vocal leaders.
“Women were expected to sit in the pews, receiving messages from men in the pulpit. Their role was to recognize God in their pastor, not to expect or demand that he recognize God in them.” -MHP
Although Black women register the highest levels of religiosity of any other demographic, they also register some of the lowest levels of happiness. Black Christianity may have indeed resisted white supremacy in some quarters, but it promoted sexism in its embrace of the myth of the inferiority of women. It is a theology that survives on the false hope that God seeks the liberation of the oppressed, even when all of history tells us otherwise. As Harris-Perry writes, for every Harriet Tubman and every Sojourner Truth there are thousands of Black women who were crushed under the weight of stifling oppression, many of them clutching their bibles in hope of recognition and in hope of reconciliation and in hope of a better life in the next world.
“I know these Baptist ministers ’cause my father was one. I’m not anti-church and I’m not anti-religious but if you go down Highway 49 all the way into Jackson, going through Drew, Ruleville, Blaine, Indianola, Moorhead, all over you’ll see just how many churches are selling out to the white power structure.” -Fannie Lou Hamer