Oppression and Power^*: The Unique Status of the Black Woman in the American Political System Available to Purchase

The unique status of the black woman, when compared to other women in the American political system, is rooted in the heritage of slavery based on race. While racism was institutionalized by the slave system, this ideology assumed a value independent of the particular system under which it first flourished. Consequently, when the plantation slave structures were destroyed, the oppression of the black woman and other blacks, which was now justified on a racial basis, continued in other institutional forms. The belief had been established and internalized that black people were inferior to white people and experienced deserved oppression because of their race, not necessarily because of the slave structures that characterized the American system. Thus, the permanency of their color would incur the continuation of subjugation even in the absence of slavery. As a result, the emergence of new economic, social and political structures in the aftermath of slavery...