mekka okereke :verified:
Susan B Anthony was a bad person. She didn't fight for "women's right to vote " She fought for "*White* women's right to vote." It would be one thing if she just didn't focus on Black folks' right to vote, but she actively worked against it. As hard as she fought for White women to get to vote, she actively campaigned against the Black vote and constructed a coalition of racists to keep Black feminists out, and hold Black voters back.
She was a white supremacist. White supremacists are bad
1/N
mekka okereke :verified:
Susan B Anthony was the first in a long line of "white feminists" who work against their own interests by refusing to ally with Black women. They take precious time out from ending their own oppression, to heap more oppression onto Black women🙂🙃
Susan B Anthony is closer to Margarie Taylor Green than to Elizabeth Warren. She would almost certainly be a Trump voter.
It's Nov 5th, 2024. If the majority of white women vote with Black women today, it would be the 1st time in almost 100 years.
2/N
mekka okereke :verified:
So much is silly about this.
1) There are people reading this that are mad at me for saying it, but are not mad about it being true.🤷🏿♂️
2) If more than half of all white women voters didn't spend the past *checks notes* forever, voting against all other women, we would have much faster progress on gender equality.
Y'all need to get over being mad at Black people for saying this. Seriously. You've had enough time. Process it and get over it. Then be better tomorrow.
3/3
Fifi Lamoura
@mekkaokereke Yep. Also, White women got the vote in the US with a lot of help from the KKK because of worries about WASPs/White men losing power.
Philip Mallegol-Hansen
@mekkaokereke Man that’s fucked up.
*And* it’s fucked up that I didn’t know until you said it.
Ju pas Piteur
@mekkaokereke met a women a few months ago here in Paris doing research on exactly this topic (white feminism against black people's voting rights at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th in the USA).
Wesley Faulkner
@mekkaokereke Damn. You make me smarter every day.
Fifi Lamoura
@mekkaokereke Being mad at the past rather than informed by it is very ridiculous. But people like their myths about perfect people fighting for perfect justice, which we get sold by those who want to maintain power because it would be far more radical to understand that real change (for better and worse) is made by flawed, imperfect people (and that not all change is real change, particularly if it's actually really about preserving hegemonic power....in these situations categories can become very flexible, tokenism is a strategy to preserve power by presenting the illusion of change).
Fifi Lamoura
@mekkaokereke People who don't really know the history of science and medicine have a very limited understanding of the role racism and eugenics played in our own nations. The general public have been sold the fiction that eugenics was something Nazis did, not us. This has also allowed race pseudoscience to reemerge in academia. The lies we tell ourselves and others poison and change us, whether it's on an individual or cultural level.
Dave Fischer
@mekkaokereke Matilda Gage is the early suffragette who really holds up on other issues.
🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
@mekkaokereke Vidal said this cultural forgetfulness is both deliberate & convenient, encouraged by the political & media folks that prioritize entertainment & shallow patriotism over critical historical awareness. By not engaging with history, we perpetuate myths supporting the status quo, like how noble Susan B Anthony was, & keep citizens disconnected from the true events that shaped this country.
🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
@mekkaokereke reinforces Gore Vidal's concept of the United States of Amnesia, the tendency to forget its own history, anything that challenges its idealized self-image. This collective amnesia prevents Americans from learning from past mistakes, leading to the repetition of errors in the form of misguided policies, unchecked imperialism & erosion of civil liberties.
🇪🇷Götterdämmerung
@mekkaokereke This lack of historical awareness is a dangerous flaw, and allows manipulative leaders & corporate interests to operate without accountability at the cost of democracy & true freedom.
So, US of Amnesia enables a cycle of ignorance that serves powerful interests, ensuring the public remains complacent & complicit, unable to mount meaningful opposition to practices or policies that they barely understand let alone remember.
Maier Amsden
@justafrog @mekkaokereke Thaddeus Stevens, Moncure Conway... there are a few white old thought leaders who got it mostly right. It's also important to recognize the progressives who saw past their flawed cultures.
JustAFrog
@mekkaokereke When you start incorporating that non-white people are also worthy of human rights, you have to retire most of the white heroes, because wow did they not support that at all.
It hurts to find out that people you admire are not worth that, and were in fact doing bad things which got misrepresented to you as good things.
A decent person would take the hit and move on.
A less ideal person will try to shoot the messenger though.
wasabi brain
@Gotterdammerung @mekkaokereke reminds me how MLK jr and Einstein have been flattened in our history books and only small snippets of their large body of written work is taught. These guys were radicals. They were fantastic writers….and they called out wars of empire and systems of economic oppression
Karen Conlin
@fifilamoura @mekkaokereke When my parents married in 1951, they were given a book about eugenics as part of their premarital counseling. All about having the healthiest white babies.
I have wiped the title and author from memory, but I felt filthy when I touched it during the housecleaning following Dad's death.
mekka okereke :verified:
😮
Mario Trost
Thanks for this! I don't know if you know Erik Loomis from
lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com but he has a long running blog series called "Erik Visits an American Grave" (today part 1744 was published)
Every time someone mentions a historical person I don't know, I google his name and that person's name to see if he visited that grave. (I'm not from the US so didn't know Anthony).
Turns out he visited Anthony's and Stanton's:
- https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/erik-visits-american-grave-part-342
- https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/04/erik-visits-an-american-grave-part-465
Court Cantrell prefers not to
@Bam @mekkaokereke @whknott All of our favorites are problematic--because they're human. That doesn't mean we can't hold up the good things they did/do -- we just have to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge aloud that they're sometimes deeply flawed.
If the flaws involve actively and systematically endangering the freedoms and lives of certain groups of people, then we probably need to reevaluate whether or not to keep them as favorites.
Bam
It is often disappointing looking back at people who were trailblazers in their time only to see their deep flaws. Idolizing human beings often sets us up for disappointment.
mekka okereke :verified:
♥️
I wish I could boost the above take more than once!
Wyatt H Knott
@fifilamoura @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke True. Does that mean we should all keep the statues of confederate soldiers in our homes?
I'm not advocating the destruction of history. I'm just saying that sometimes an individual can decide they don't want to carry that particular torch.
Fifi Lamoura
@whknott I think there's a big difference between these things and I'm not advocating everyone read or have a copy of Mein Kampf. I'm not advocating for glorifying the past (statues of this kind are always memorializing, they're not documents, they're a form of mythmaking), I'm advocating for less mythmaking and more grappling with reality. @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke
Fifi Lamoura
@whknott I mean, this thread is about how the racism involved in US feminism gets left out of the history books in the service of mythmaking so we're literally talking about history gets erased and distorted by erasing the bits about eugenics. It's clearly something quite a lot of Americans are unaware of (particularly non-intersectional feminists). @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke
Wyatt H Knott
@fifilamoura @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke I get that. I just think that it's unlikely that any individual is going to do that work on any significant level. That's the kind of thing that needs to be systematized and institutionalized - kids need to learn tolerance with their ABCs. And the flip side is that there are plenty of cases where one individual was radicalized to do something harmful by exposure to such material.
So, yes, but also it doesn't have to be you if you don't want it to be.
Wyatt H Knott
@GramrgednAngel @fifilamoura @mekkaokereke Some books are OK to burn
Fifi Lamoura
@whknott I actually think it's important to preserve some of this stuff, we need to understand our past not try to erase it. Especially the horrifying stuff because the horrifying stuff is still around, race pseudoscience is still being pushed in very "esteemed" academic institutions, etc. It needs to be understood that it's a pseudoscience (the fact we still call it "race science" and not "race pseudoscience" is indicative of what a problem it still is). Erasing it only allows it to flourish in darkness. @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke
Court Cantrell prefers not to
@mekkaokereke I voted with Black women and for a Black/Asian woman this morning! My 12yo daughter watched me fill out my ballot, and I am so excited that she, a very white girl, is seeing her very white mother changing at least our family tree. I have hope that what we're doing will prove to be part of a new wave, a shift of white women standing with women of color to make change that is vital and beneficial for all of us.
Marc W. :sun:
@MaierAmsden @justafrog @mekkaokereke
Don’t forget about John Brown, the badass white abolitionist who lived and died fighting slavery.
“John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave
But his soul goes marching on
Glory glory hallelujah
Glory glory hallelujah
Glory glory hallelujah
His soul goes marching on”
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Fifi Lamoura
@irene We're still soaking in it. Hillary Clinton called poor young Black men "super predators" back in the day yet ran for president. That's pure, uncut eugenics and race pseudoscience about genetics and babies being born evil (see also the "crack baby" hysteria of the same time period). Poverty and eugenics is applied against White people too. You believe poor people are poor because they're born stupid? Congrats, you believe in eugenics. You may want to fix that! @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke
Irene Zhang
@GramrgednAngel @fifilamoura @mekkaokereke I wonder how many people are still getting that, veiled or not, today.
Mab_813
@fifilamoura @whknott @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke
Exactly, statues of athletes, philosophers, emperors etc. were erected as a positive honour in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and that hasn't changed. The argument that statues are some sort of "neutral history" doesn't hold any water.
Court Cantrell prefers not to
Fifi Lamoura
@mloxton More info about White American women, sufferage and the KKK. https://19thnews.org/2020/12/first-came-suffrage-then-came-the-women-of-the-ku-klux-klan/
Matthew Loxton
@mekkaokereke
Ooh. I was not aware of that side of her.
Thank you for unpacking that for me.
Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈
@mekkaokereke
Yup. While I respect a narrow set of actions she took to get white women the vote, I abhor her generally because she was a piece of shit.
It's the same with the founders. They compromised with people's LIVES to get it done. An entire nation, built on blood and pain and hate.
I love the promise of America, but there is SO much crap to clean up and so many wrongs to fix.
Thank you for the reminder. The heroes of the past aren't always heroes when you learn the true story.
Venita
@mekkaokereke White women in the movement were always doing Ida dirty. Standing up for her principles: Ida B. Wells and the Suffrage Movement
https://interactive.wttw.com/chicago-stories/ida-b-wells/standing-up-for-her-principles-ida-b-wells-and-the-suffrage-movement
klausfiend
@marc_w @MaierAmsden @justafrog @mekkaokereke Here's to John Brown, the guy who made slavery dangerous to slavers.
John Lusk
@fifilamoura @mloxton @mekkaokereke
Yeesh. Talk about intersectionality. :/
A feral Cass (they/them)
@fifilamoura @whknott @GramrgednAngel @mekkaokereke Yep. You nailed it here, Fifi. As a disabled person who tries to point out to others a lot how embedded eugenics is in US culture, and how long that has been the case, the preservation of this kind of evidence is crucial, Getting rid of evidence like this actually plays directly into fascists' hands. Can't help thinking of recent news about things being removed from national archives exhibits that might be objectionable to conservatives.
normy foxyoreos
@janisf @forpeterssake @tarheel @mekkaokereke I would argue that part of the reason feminism "won" (to the extent it has actually won) is that Black women showed up and did the work anyway, even though they were being excluded. Black voices have a strong history in feminist movements.
If every marginalized group advocates only for themselves, nothing gets done.
normy foxyoreos
@janisf @forpeterssake @tarheel @mekkaokereke Minorities and marginalized groups are almost by definition at a disadvantage when advocating for themselves, and the only way we combat that disadvantage is through solidarity.
Every political movement from feminism to gay rights has always been tempted to throw others under the bus in the hope that by doing so, oppressors will accept them.
It doesn't work. Oppressors don't accept the oppressed and any temporary alliance there is doomed to fail.
normy foxyoreos
@janisf @forpeterssake @tarheel @mekkaokereke When the marginalized reject solidarity, they are doing the work of oppressors for them: dividing themselves so that they can be more easily conquered.
You are never going to get equal rights by getting bigots to like you. You get equal rights by forming a coalition that is so powerful that bigots no longer have the ability to say no.
normy foxyoreos
@janisf @forpeterssake @tarheel @mekkaokereke So just like kink at pride discourse or LGB without the T, race-blind feminism discards allies so that it can cozy up to the same people that are pushing women down in the first place.
It's both bad strategy and morally wrong.
Janis
@forpeterssake @tarheel @mekkaokereke I'm not saying you're wrong. There may be a more useful way to look at this, though. Women's suffrage may never have been a thing if she hadn't been able to get the racists on board with it. The thing about power is you can't get it without touching it and not making it recoil.
I don't have a good answer. Fighting for peace doesn't make sense, either.
Pete
@tarheel @mekkaokereke
I doubt she would have voted for Trump, but she definitely saw the expansion of voting rights as a zero-sum game and was willing to climb on the backs of black women and other minorities if it meant getting white women the vote.
John Lusk
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/susan-b-anthony-vote-negro-woman/
I disagree w/your assessment of her as a Trump voter, though.
mekka okereke :verified:
Yes, the "story" is wrong in important ways.
I didn't say that Susan B Anthony was pro-slavery. I very specifically said that she was a white supremacist, she formed an organization of white supremacists, she kept out Black suffragettes, and she hindered Black people's access to the vote. Oh, and that she was a bad person.
Surprisingly, most white supremacists are not pro-slavery. Most famously, Abraham Lincoln was a self-admitted white supremacist, and also abolitionist
Ants Are Everywhere
@mekkaokereke I'm sure you know this, but the standard history is that Susan B Anthony was a lifelong abolitionist and supporter of Black rights including universal suffrage. Are you saying that story is incorrect in important ways?
At least in the standard telling, there was a struggle within AERA where one group decided that strategically they couldn't get both Black suffrage and female suffrage and they asked the feminists to stand down while they worked exclusively for the Black male vote.
From Wikipedia
> After the Kansas campaign, the AERA increasingly divided into two wings, both advocating universal suffrage but with different approaches. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. The other, whose leading figures were [Susan B.] Anthony and Stanton, insisted that *women and black men should be enfranchised at the same time* and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists.
(emphasis mine)
Is this wrong? Thanks
I agree that in general there is a history of white supremacy in various feminist movements.
mekka okereke :verified:
Many US historians are liars. They know the truth, but then they lie about it, to minimize the racism. Because it's is shameful.
It's not hard to find primary sources on Susan B Anthony's correspondence and conversations with Frederick Douglass, and Ida B Wells. It's not hard to find out exactly how many Black women were invited to Seneca Falls. It's not hard to confirm that she literally opposed the 15th amendment, because she didn't want Black men to get the vote first.
Ants Are Everywhere
@mekkaokereke okay thanks
But do you disagree specifically with historians that she supported and fought for the vote for both Black women and white women?
I understand you think she's a bad person, and I know there have been a lot of articles recently focusing on the conflict. That's I think a good debate about judgment and the things we should value.
But it kind of sounds like you believe she only supported the vote for white women or only fought for their right to vote, which is an empirical claim I haven't seen anybody make yet.
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