Much has been said about the projection and notoriety that black feminist actions have achieved in recent years. One of the main highlights of the Feminist Spring was the large-scale performance of black women, showing society that we exist, that we are beautiful, articulate, intelligent and united (to the surprise of the racist patriarchy that does everything to make this union not possible) . Our agendas are broad, urgent, emergency and we have them at the tip of our tongue, the result of countless meetings and discussions that permeate our environment throughout the four corners of Brazil. The black women's march, which took place last week, sealed once and for all the political and social action that has been systematically erased. 
But we still have a lot to conquer – we have everything to conquer, I would say -, because the spaces have not opened and are not willing to open in a satisfactory way. As the geographer Milton Santos said, in 1997, in an interview with the Programa Roda Viva: “Brazil does not show signs of openness to the racial debate”.
There are few sectors of society that propose to discuss and comply with our demands. In the vast majority, they are received with mockery and neglect. Our erasure as a political being is explicit.
Our history of social devaluation and dual objectification, as women and as Black people, is still freely oppressing us across America. Every day. Claudias die at the hands of the genocidal State and no one exchanges avatars on social networks or shows solidarity with the families of the victims. We continue with the lowest wages, widely accepted in underemployment and excluded from intellectual activities, we are dying more and enjoying the affective solitude that some do not even dare to discuss and those who dare are harshly attacked, and, still, we are sexually disposable and fetishized. In the media, we continue to be stereotyped. In health, we are also excluded from discussions that result in public policies that benefit us. 
And who's for us, if white feminism is more busy coining the libertarian meaning of red lipstick, not caring that we still have women who can't even afford lipstick? If, primarily white feminism, continues to use the racist portion of patriarchy to guarantee its bourgeois privileges? If, white feminism, either embraces the implausible discourse of the left that insists on saying that our problem is solely and exclusively one of class (ignoring the racial information intrinsic to the concept) or embraces the liberal discourse that we are all human (in this case we are all women)? And, finally, if white feminism, disguisedly uses the concept of meritocracy, stating that any more incisive mobilization coming from women who do not see their demands being contemplated is segregating the feminist movement?
Women, technically, do not have the power of oppression, because machismo affects everyone. But even so, white women have a strong arm at the service of maintaining their few, but significant advantages: racism. And, while being supported by the structural and structuring racism of all political and social functions, white women do oppress. Just look at domestic work relationships, the remnants of slavery are there and racism is what opens up this possibility. When the contingent of domestic workers is composed of white, Caucasian and Europeanized women, these relationships will change, there is no doubt about it.
The feminism that accuses black women of segregationism has, in fact, segmented the struggle for a long time. Supported by the cynical concept of women as a universal being, it reduced the struggle to its own needs, disregarding the variants that create the diverse female experiences and the shortcomings opened up by the wound of exploitation used by male supremacy. 
The accusations of segregation that black feminism has been raising by the most alienated sectors of feminism are unfounded, and can be interpreted as a typically racist expression of disqualification of the presence of black women in the political sphere.
However, there has already been a significant hiatus in the history of feminism, awaiting the attitude of the post-suffragists who emerged victorious in their battles, where black supporting actors had an indispensable participation. And, in that period, only absolute silence was obtained in response, forcing black women and other female representations to draw up their own action plans in the struggle for their survival. We survived. But we want more.
Feminists must know, regardless of which way they choose to act, that we are in a social and collective struggle. This social and collective struggle is for broad, general and unrestricted autonomy. For the possession of our bodies considered by male supremacy as public and alienable, for our effective participation in social decision-making spaces, such as politics, for example. It fights for security and the guarantee of rights and, mainly, for actions in society that value our presence as a fundamental actor in the social structure. Struggle for equity and for living conditions proportionate to those enjoyed by men. Fight. Social struggle.
We know that the social has a stain, a dirt that permeates the depths of our relationships. Feminists can also be racist. And they are. We saw this in the various manifestations contrary to the criticism made about a text by a contemporary black intellectual, where the futility and cultural appropriation by a famous white feminist were pointed out. While discussing the meaning of red lipstick, black women are victims of femicide. Black women live with domestic violence and unemployment. With devaluation and low wages. With harassment and erasure in academic spaces. And none of this is addressed by feminists who reach a significant media space. We know that nobody saves anybody, not even feminism. But Survivors, in the strict sense of the word, are single mothers, trans, lesbian, black, peripheral, indigenous. And it is not their image in a cute video clip that will change the situation, but an eloquent and courageous critique, exposing the needs that these women have in their lives and that cannot wait any longer. In other words, white feminists with media projection in their favor must 'put their hands in the bowl' and bring these women to the social surface. Ana Tijoux does it, Luana Hansen too…
Did no white feminist who attacked the free expression of a black feminist stop to think and analyze the criticism in depth? The groupie spirit of a crazed fan spoke louder and the offenses were so heavy that they generated an open letter, absolutely unaware of reality, reaffirming the need to discuss racism within feminism. Have no white feminists considered opening a frank and responsible dialogue about where feminism needs to go? White feminists elect a feminist symbol that is flawed and in dubious deconstruction, but politely disregards the legacy of Lélia Gonzáles and her role in the propagation of Brazilian feminism. No one reads Sueli Carneiro in Tupiniquin lands. Many recognize Djamila Ribeiro, but few are those who take the trouble to know who she is, do not discuss her words, her academic production and would not be able to say the importance she has for us black women. If these feminists were white, would they be more valued? Maybe yes maybe no. Little is said about Margareth Rago, and Marcia Tiburi is better known for what she knows about Nietzsche (the white man) than for her role as a feminist articulator. This points to a need for academic content for white feminists in general. After all, we are talking about political and social struggle. 
What I mean by these quotes is that black feminism does not set out to segregate. Quite the opposite. It was us black women who opened up the concept of intersectionality within feminism. While Harriet Tubman is overlooked in North America, over here, who is interested in Tia Ciata, Luiza Mahin, Aqualtune and Dandara?
Looking at it this way, can we really say that black feminism is a movement apart? Clearly, this statement is racist, and if there is any trace of separatism, it comes from white women and their neglect and disregard for their need to deconstruct racism and treat the subject as a fundamental part of feminism.
We are the result of this process of incomplete construction of the feminist struggle that left us adrift and we are now emerging as a strong voice that has been stifled for years on end, because our steps come from afar.
It is natural that we are at the center of the struggle. The time will come for indigenous feminism, for transfeminism, and believe me, this moment is under our noses, gaining strength and empowerment.
Sorority, which has been cited a lot and wrongly, is respect for the experiences of each one and the empathy necessary for our relationships to be fair and inclusive. If we stop to think that, while white feminists fought for the right to vote and for the right to work outside the home without husband's authorization, black women were enslaved and supported these individual struggles, which continued individually throughout the history of feminism, we arrive at to the conclusion that it is time for this white, elitist woman, who achieved some autonomy and social recognition, to be willing to be an ally in our individualities, opening space, showing interest, not feeling threatened by our protagonism and much less trying to steal it from us. 
It starts with the significance of our voices within the inner circle of white feminism, making room for the deconstruction of racism to immediately secure our recognition as different, non-divergent, allied, empowered, and empowered women.
Feminism must harshly reject its current status as host to racism, otherwise it will fall into the traps of male supremacy and end up as a female provider of the perversities of patriarchy. Every time a white feminist acts truculently, denying her own racism and trying to silence black women and their experiences, she is acting in favor of the oppressive structure in which we live and is, in fact, working against feminism as a social struggle for real autonomy.
The day that Audre Lorde has the same importance as Simone de Beauvoir, that Lélia Gonzáles has the recognition equivalent to that of Clarice Falcão, and that it is realized that obtaining recognition from one does not exclude the value of the other, we will be very close to the dream of intersectionality being put into practice. This is the collective and beautifully constructed struggle of black feminism.
Joice Berth is an Architect and Urban Planner from Universidade Nove de Julho and has a postgraduate degree in Urban Law from PUC-MG. Black Intersectional Feminist and member of the Coletivo Imprensa Feminista.
Photos from the Women's March on March 8, 2018. Beautiful shots by photographer Giorgia Prates.
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Text published in the Justificando section of Carta Capital on November 28, 2015.
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