These “economic opportunities” Black women were given still chained them to the triple-blind of race, sex, and class. She stresses that this view was often glanced over by white abolitionists, especially when this point could fuel liberation.Ī quarter of a century after slavery, Davis makes the connection that Black women were in conditions no better than slavery.

Angela Davis then adds a Marxist viewpoint to her work, where she uses the quote by Karl Marx, “(L)labor in a white skin can never be free as long as labor in a black skin is branded” (Davis 69). In describing the white abolitionist attitude, the reader can see that white abolitions either defended industrial capitalists or didn't have a sense of class loyalty whatsoever. Often, this fact is overlooked under the same attitude of the Seneca Falls Movement: that feminists are not obligated to fight against racism. Black women are situated in the lowest class of society. This vulnerability in the movement gave Sojourner Truth her platform, in which she asks, “Ain’t I a woman?”, to drive home the fact that deserving, honorable women are Black too. This convention failed to push an anti-racist narrative, which unfortunately embedded the same attitude in the organized fight for women’s rights.

The next part of the book focuses on abolition campaigns, like Seneca Falls in 1848, headed by the powerful white voices of the era. On the contrary, there were problems only Black women faced throughout slavery, like sexual violence. In Davis’ introduction, she makes the point that black women are strong because they were born into the legacy of slavery, a system that forced black women into a position of “equal” oppression, with domestic and manual labor.

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis is a work that describes the never-ending cycle of the triple-blind of Black American women: race, sex, and class, which trap them in positions that mimic slavery.

Women race & class by angela davis