Black Feminist Statement

Listen to an audio version of the Statement.

In 1977, the Combahee River Collective, a radical Black feminist group, published the "Black Feminist Statement", which had a great influence on the formation of feminist, left, and socialist thought. The "Black Feminist Statement" has appeared in the context of hitherto crucial discussions about the homogeneity of the feminist movement, disregard of racism and xenophobia, as well as the problematic issues of white liberal feminism. The Statement questioned such universal categories as "woman" and "global sisterhood." Speaking out against capitalism, hetero-patriarchy, racism, and liberal individualism, the activists of the Combahee River Collective sought to find new forms of collective imagination, public space, radical queer politics, and freedom. In the post-Soviet context, this Statement remains mostly unknown. We think that the Statement articulates important theorizing, which, although produced in the geographical west, provides examples of radical feminist imagination and resistance. The translation of the Statement into Russian can create a space for comprehension of transformative radical solidarities, as well as for reflection on the relations between post-Soviet feminist practices and racial, colonial, and imperial formations. The Combahee River Collective emphasizes the importance of centering the marginal experiences of people of color, whose bodies and identities are a constant target of attacks, neglect, and systematic violence, as well as a major resource exploited under the global capitalist regime.

Keywords: racism, anti-racist feminism, Black feminism, intersectionality, socialism.

This translation is a part of special issue of “Feminist Critique” which will contain materials of the “Fucking Solidarity: queering concepts on/from a Post-Soviet perspective” international conference that was held 20-23 September 2017 at the University of Vienna (сonference organizers are Katharina Wiedlack, Masha Neufeld, Tania Zabolotnaya, Liza Belorusova, Sasha Skorykh, Saltanat Shoshanova, Masha Godovannaya). The guest editors of the issue are Katharina Wiedlack, Liza Belorusova, Olenka Dmytryk, Syaivo.

Read the complete translation in Russian.