How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The only way that we can win—and before winning, the only way we can survive is by working with each other, and not seeing each other as enemies. There’s far too much of the perspective of: “You’re not like me. I’m not like you. I’m not a transgender person. I don’t give a damn whether you can go to a bathroom or not. And the fact that you’re being murdered summarily, and that your income levels keep you in poverty far more likely than somebody who is cisgender—that’s not my problem!” Those are bad politics. Really, really bad politics. And the reason it’s important, as I said, is because that’s how we win, and that’s how we survive in the meantime. There are ethical principles of struggle that you can see in any significant political intervention in history. You will see—one of the things that you should see in positive movements forward toward justice—not toward power—because there are many interventions that were just about the accrual of power, where you didn’t really have that mentality and that principle of “We must all be in this together.” But if it’s a forward movement toward justice, you will see that people of different backgrounds and different places in a social structure actually at times come together.