Black Oppression of Black People- Last Walker, I promise

The final point that really jumped out at me from Walker's essay was the part towards the end where it talks about the oppression of blacks, namely black men. The wife reads statistics about how black men were oppressed after the Civil War, how many were abused during what time periods, etc.

There was one line that she skips over pretty much, but that jumps out at the husband. It was, "There were also a number of Black women lynched." Walker then says that maybe the wife didn't dwell on that point because in a way, she is still the more oppressed gender of the race- and so she can't dwell on the fact that, for her, the situation really hasn't changed so much. The man can look at the idea of women being lynched from a distance, because he is much less oppressed. For her, it is still reality.

The point comes up that the power relationships have changed dramatically. Where in the past, it was whites over blacks, now it is men over women. There is still some of the racial elements. But if you look within both the white community and the black community, it is male power over women. This transcends the racial category, suggesting that gender imbalances are stronger than racial imbalances. "...[W]omen... have in a sense become uppity niggers. As the Black man threatens the white man's masculinity and power, so now do women."