persecution are transmitted and inherited across generations , viscerally and materially , as well as psychologically . The philosopher Susan Brison even argued that women have an embodied postmemory of rape . And they also have postmemories of how generations preceding them have both accommodated to and resisted , even refused , compulsory heteronormativity and subordination .
Recent feminist demonstrations and demands for equity and recognition on behalf of women and LGBTQI populations follow on a long tradition of organized struggles against misogynistic and homophobic bias and violence – connecting to long histories of anti-racist struggles as well . Memory is important here as well . We have so much to learn from the tactics of emancipation , suffrage , abortion rights , labor and so many other movements of the past . These activist memories and memories of activism are instrumental in shaping these new movements , both inspiring them by example and showing up past shortcomings . I hope that my generation has been able to transmit our passionate hopes and struggles for change , even as we need to recognize that these battles still have to be fought time and again .
Of course , every generation also needs to find its own way . As someone who came to feminism in the 1970 ’ s , I am acutely aware of some of the mistakes my generation made , but also of some of our bold tactics and generative analyses , some of which have been forgotten , critiqued and superseded by younger generations . But I am also seeing transgenerational and transnational continuities in the demands for rights and recognition among feminists and the renewed energies that protests against sexist and homophobic violence and harassment are enjoying right now .
7 . As we speak , Black Lives Matter is gathering momentum in cities across the US in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer . You ’ ve spoken about how Toni Morrison ’ s novel Beloved affected you in its description of the transmission of the memory of slavery and , right now , confederate monuments across the States have become a flashpoint in protests against racism . What weight does the memory of slavery have in these expressions of social indignation caused by discrimination against black people ?
The protest against anti-Black racism in the United States and across the globe do not just reference the memory of slavery but its continued consequences and after-effects in both Black and white communities . The line between enslavement , the period of Reconstruction during which former slaves were first granted rights and then cheated out of the benefits promised by abolition , the racist separations and persecutions of the Jim Crow era and current social and economic and social inequalities in the United States is continuous . How can we separate the memory of slavery from these present conditions ? Don ’ t we need to think them together , carefully analyzing how one is compounding the other ?
The monumental disparities in the death rates of Blacks and other people or color from the Coronavirus show us how these inequalities have created insurmountable social vulnerabilities . So while the Confederate statues that are still standing in many US cities testify to the fact that this country has not yet worked through the crimes of enslavement and its aftermath , the tremendous inequalities in income , health care , educational opportunities , incarceration , etc . show us some of the concrete forms of repair and reparation that need to be accomplished along with and beyond memory work .
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Observing Memories ISSUE 4