Angela Davis's Essay 'The Black Woman In The Community Of Slaves'

Eleanor Roosevelt once stated so cleverly, “A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” Women are nurturers of the world, yet they are underestimated in their preeminence. Their strength has been depreciated for centuries. Surprisingly, it has been during times where it seems their virtue would count the most-- times when slavery and racism existed in it’s entirety. Angela Y. Davis articulates in her essay, “The Black Woman in the Community of Slaves,” that without women, the end to slavery would have been intangible. She discusses their role in community framing, culture preservation, and powerful resistance that is commonly overlooked. One could imagine how different life would be without the mere presence of a woman. Suddenly, life as we know it changes, and not for the better in any way. As Davis argues and I comply, women’s role in slavery was active and spirited. They endured the cruelty of slavery as much as their male …show more content…
Yet, black women are not recognized as victims and endurers of slavery as black men are. Davis acknowledges the sexual assault brought upon black women defining it as “the most elemental form of terrorism” and emphasising the ruthlessness it inflicted on black women (123). The use of the word terrorism says it all. It implies wickedness, turmoil, and cruelty. It is unacceptable to deny women their experience with rape and their entire existence in slavery as a whole, for they may have endured the worst of it. “The Moynihan Report” written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, argued that the state of African Americans and the existence of the “matriarchal black woman” was due to the legacy of slavery (112). However, Davis refutes the report and all of it’s ideas and argues that because of the treatment women were susceptible to, they became motivators of freedom, cultivators of culture, and builders of