This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Chapter 3, “And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You: Racism in the Women’s Movement,” serves to clearly lay out the deleterious effects of racism within the women’s movement. These effects include the tokenization of women of color and use-of-convenience to white women’s benefit, continuing the colonization of Third World people in the US. This section considers what has been happening in and around the mainstream women’s movement and how this mirrors the racism, sexism, and classism in wider society. Ultimately, the idea is that if feminists cannot be inclusive of the multiple oppressions that so many women face, then feminism will never be able to fulfill its purpose of equality.

“And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You” and “Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu” by Jo Carillo explore the harm that exploitation of Third World women perpetuates. Carillo paints a picture of interactions she’s seen between white American feminist women and women of color. “And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You” touches specifically on the hypocritical use of photos of women of color in Third World countries for feminist literary campaigns, with white women benefitting from these Third World women while feeling wholly uncomfortable with the struggles of Third World women at home: “in the flesh / not as a picture they own, / they are not quite as sure / if / they like us as much” (61). Similarly, “Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu” reveals the way white tourists simultaneously perpetuate harmful narratives about Native Americans and enjoy the beautiful crafts that come from Indigenous communities, bragging about their “Navajo rugs” and “Authentic Navajo Hopi Zuni Indian” artifacts that they take home or display in museums and lamenting over “those Indians” that are “all just drunks” in the same breath. Kate Rushin’s poem “The Black Back-Ups” similarly looks at the dismissive attitude toward Black women. She uses the example of Black women as back-up singers and domestic workers, doing “invisible” work with little recognition. These three pieces portray two women’s experiences of racism and exploitation without any of the benefits of visibility, which runs parallel to their treatment within the women’s movement, where white women are more than willing to use Third World women to their own ends without considering the needs of those Third World women.

In the poem “I Don’t Understand Those Who Have Turned Away from Me” by Chrystos and essay “Asian Pacific American Women and Feminism” by Mitsuye Yamada, Chrystos and Yamada describe their exhaustion and frustration dealing with their poor treatment by white feminists in the women’s movement. Chrystos’s poem focuses on how drained she feels after becoming involved in the women’s movement and how readily the white women who called her “sister” left her behind: “My dreams of crossing barriers to true understanding were false/Most of the white women I thought I was close to want nothing to do with me now” (66-67).

Yamada’s essay sheds light on her treatment as an Asian American woman invited to come onboard to the white feminists’ cause. The white feminists were unwilling to get onboard with issues of Asian American women. The unbalanced expectation that Third World women can join the white feminists’ movement rather than the other way around is part of the issue of mainstream feminism; the white, middle-class feminists are blind to their privilege and to the immediate needs of women whose identities present different challenges than their own.

 “—But I Know You, American Woman” by Judit Moschkovich, “The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Wimmin” by doris davenport, and “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” by Audre Lorde, reveal the misplaced responsibility in the women’s movement, as white feminists are shifting off the responsibility for educating the oppressors onto the oppressed.

Moschkovich’s essay explains her Latina, Jewish, immigrant perspective on having to justify her own existence. As a Third World woman, she has had to be bicultural while white feminists have never been forced to become fluent in a culture that is not their own. “The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Wimmin” adds an in-depth analysis on why and how these white feminists are “reactionary” due to their own oppression by white men and the complex they have developed, leading to an exertion of power over others in conjunction with the privileges they experience. “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” serves as an example for how even potentially well-meaning white feminists can perpetuate oppression by continuing narratives that leave out Third World women. This piece highlights the theme of invisibility, as Audre Lorde lays out to Mary Daly what her mistakes were and how she could right them.

Rosario Morales’s poem “We Are All in the Same Boat” and Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” emphasize the need to harness both differences and commonalities in the fight for equality. In particular, Audre Lorde’s piece is well known for its key point that, in using the same tools that the patriarchy uses to suppress them, no one—not white feminists, Third World women, or people of color—will realize an un-oppressive society. This sentiment is important because it underlies what makes This Bridge radical: the call for not a reformation of the systems and institutions as they are, but a revolution that is not built exclusively by and for straight white men with wealth.