The Oppression Of African-American Women

African-American women and White women as groups are not equivalent. African-American women have endured so much hate, bigotry, and oppression for centuries. These experiences have been carried down from generations to generations, some through shared stories and other from direct or indirect experiences. One can only sympathize what African-American women had tolerated and is currently tolerating; although, groups external to African-American women group can never empathize with us. For the shoes that African-American women wear are too big and too heavy for anyone outside this group to totally comprehend. “The reality of African American women is a reality of oppression by design. Psychological mutilation, the violence of rape and forced

Nevertheless, it is inevitable; race will always outweigh any of the other groups/subgroups that people belong to because “institutionalized racism constitutes such a fundamental feature of lived Black experience that, in the minds of many African-American women, racism overshadows sexism and other forms of group-based oppression” (p. 208). In addition, media plays a role in how Americans view African-American women groups. We are consistently labeled in all facets of media outlets as “welfare queens,” “Aunt Jemima,” “unfit mothers,” “nappy headed-ho,” “cocoa puff,” “darkie,” “crispy,” “lazy,” “liver lips,” “broad nose,” “nitch,” and etc. Moreover, White American children experience an early onset of what is considered beautiful though the depictions of Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Barbie.
In closing, racism was systematically designed for “groups [to] remain separated from one another and do not see themselves as sharing common interests” (p. 210) because “the impact of racism on the lives of members of this diverse group has cause the breakdown of the family and the weakening of community and family ties” (303). African-American women group and White American women group