Combahee Survival: Smart-Ugly?

[Lex]

"We discovered that all of us, because we were "smart" had also been considered "ugly," i.e. "smart-ugly." "Smart-ugly" crytallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop out intellects at great cost to our "social" lives. The sanctions in the Black and white communities against Black women thinkers is comparatively much higher than for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classess." ---From the Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)

What do we think?????

Radical educator artist and writer Kameelah Rasheed says
Artist, Writer and Educator Kameelah Rasheed

Artist, Writer and Educator Kameelah Rasheed

we are the \’kinda cute nerdy black girls in glasses with the big asses.\’ we sneak to read pages of academic books hidden in fashion magazine covers and we sway in our silk stockings with golden seams as does nina simone\’s see-line woman. we smile reluctantly while questioning the politics of gendered vulnerability. we intimately know how we are treated when we are cute and quiet and we know that within a split second we can become ugly and undesirable if we use a polysyllable word or concession clause. we know our partners would prefer us more soft spoken. we know that the day we chose books over lipstick and wrote manifestas on any open space that we found that were choosing a lonely path. it was/is lonely because we never knew where the \’weird\’ black girls hide out. they are are scattered throughout the diaspora, tucked in corners where mail and internet cannot reach. they wander if we exist too.

knowing this

we learned to shuck n\’ jive, veiling our opposition under layers of ambiguous sentences, demure smiles, and pants just tight enough to hint at a desireable feminity because we still yearned be seen beyond the duality of smart-ugly. we pretended to not know the importance of the sepoy mutiny in india\’s colonial history, hesitated to explain the nuances of electron configuration, and feigned ignorance when asked about the pivotal moments in south africa\’s liberation movement. we let him talk even as our faces are flushed with anger because we do not want to seem \’too aggressive.\’ we go to sephora when we really want to hit up that used book store down the street. when we get home we eagerly plunge into books and other texts trying to reconnect with the parts of souls we abandoned for some semblance of belonging. we attempt to exorcise our collective demons by seeking desperate refuge in paul beatty\’s \’neighborhood safe houses on the ghetto geeks\’ underground railroad\’ only to realize such sanctuary leads to more pain when we are called up for yet another performance. we learn the grammar of smart-ugly politics at 8 years old. we don\’t write down rules, rather these rules are written on our bodies and in the faces of folks who give askew glances when we walk out the mall with books instead of dresses. we perform our blackness, our womanhood, our existence because to be smart-ugly is like permanent exile. never fully accepted in the communities of other women and far too \’smart\’ to be authentically black, we are forced into limbo. but limbo is the space of opportunity and dare i saw privilege. to be in limbo is resist the satanic incantation that our female bodies cannot carry intellect as heavy as our thighs and as broad as our hips. ida b. wells gave a damn if they called her ugly because she had more important things to do.

and as queengodis wrote in 1991,

and while he was busy detesting yo\’ mama
for being so \’damn ugly\’–
she was busy building the underground railroad…

to be smart-ugly is to be a unspoken threat.

we are the beautiful black women whose light they fear. instead of fanning our flames, they sought to extinguish our fire by calling us ugly so that we\’d be distract from the duties our ancestors and creator laid at our feet. they sought to turn our attention away from survival and collective healing. they saw beauty in us before we saw it in ourselves but named it ugliness in hopes that we\’d never reunite with this sacred knowing. \’ugly\’ is the cry of the fearful who pray that we never recognize ourselves.

[Moya]

speaks so deeply to me!! it definitely shifts (or does it correctly state) that narrative of black women having no one (black men) to date because they are so successful and intelligent.

"Quirky means rejecting a particular type of "value," a certain unreadiness for consumption and subsumption in an economy of black heterocapital. This means that Quirky Black Girls act independently of dominant social norms or standards of beauty. So fierce that others may not be able to appreciate us just yet."

smartness seems to me to be read as an unwillingness to play the game, a challenge to the rules that people have implicitly agreed to even though they themselves may know that they are maybe not good rules and that they don't make much sense. smart turns to ugly because ugly women don't matter, aren't playing, don't exist.

and it's not even that qbg's are smarter than other black women. playing the game

[Talibah]

very true. and yet i have to admit to myself that sometimes i still feel the effects of being invisible. that even though in theory i reject the social value placed on beauty and seeking the male gaze, it is almost as if i want it to be there only for me to reject. it takes a lot to stand on your own, and believe that you are valuable even if you aren't getting conventional validation.

[bLaKtivist]

As a black, smart, queer & masculine-identified woman, I think this passage hits me on a number of fronts.

I think being a smart girl coming up it was difficult for me to "play the game" but I was able to leverage my power because I was athletic. So my beauty "whether or not" it was appreciated, wasn't as much on the chopping block.

I did however feel the pull of being one of those women considered beautiful, but relegated to the smart group, as if it were substandard, because I excelled in school and eventually left public schools in my community because they weren't challenging enough. It was problematic, and difficult, especially when I came back to school in my community later, but it was what it was.

Being aware of the multitudinous ways the varied parts of my identity intersect, however, makes me focus a little less on things like being smart and ugly. Partly because by virtue of me being gender non-conforming, my "ugliness" is compounded, even if many peopl read me as a high maintenance man, or "pretty boi."

I dunno. I think this concept of being smart-ugly is formed in a very heterosexist context, so it's difficult for me to dissect it without looking at it as such.

I do however think that because intelligence, or intellectualism is undervalued not only in black society, but in society at large, that it only exaggerates how much being smart is not compelling, and inaccessible to most crowds.

[Tiffany]

This "smart-ugly" thing has been ingrained in our communities and our world since forever, I think. Put two women in a room, and the comparisons fly. "Oh, how pretty is she," the collective would say to girl A, who usually had the long hair and hazel eyes. Then they would turn their eyes to girl B, who was not considered as beautiful, and say, "this must be the smart one." Why can't we women, especially black women, be smart and beautiful? I never thought of those two as mutually exclusive.

[Moya]

on hair and things http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/07/nappy-hair-in-jolie-pitt-wo...

[Radiance]

Wow....I totally love this article. It can be difficult being an intellectual, creative person in our society.
I relate to just about everything that she says.

Follow me on Twitter: Radiance561

[Iesha Mona]

I posted this to my Facebook page in hopes to garner more of my friends to QPG. I agree with the difference between white middle class women and black women of the same category, but lets not forget another common depiction that black women are now being comfronted with "smart-lesbian". Some of the most intelligent black women I know are single and have difficulty in the dating game when it comes to finding men that are not only intellectually compatiable, but also men that are respectful towards that notion. Our singleness, outspoken intelligence, and need to stand up for our rights by combating ignorance and hate unfortunately finds us labeled as "asexual" or "lesbian" because we are single. This is especially apparent in a college environment.

[omi]

Tiffany said:

Why can't we women, especially black women, be smart and beautiful? I never thought of those two as mutually exclusive.

precisely. in my world--as far as family was concerned--pretty didn't mean a thing if you didn't have something to back it up. but i quickly learned it wasn't like that in a lot of other places.

powerful statement! love the discussion...

[Lex]

wait up homie! why lesbian gotta be in the same part of the hyphen as "ugly"tho%3

[Moya]

I don't know how unfortunate it is for me to be accurately identified. As a queer woman who is attracted to men I guess I'm glad when they code queerness with sense; saves some time :)

It's interesting that it is still an effective tactic to make straight women question their smartness or ideals by suggesting that it makes them undesirable or "lesbian" and "asexual." Male desire still gets to be the fulcrum around which everything spins. Does he think I'm too smart versus do I even like him? It's about his perception of you not your perception of his whack misogynistic/homophobic self. Somehow not being fit for heterosexual male desire makes women "dumb down" and reject pieces of themselves.

Iesha Mona said:

I posted this to my Facebook page in hopes to garner more of my friends to QPG. I agree with the difference between white middle class women and black women of the same category, but lets not forget another common depiction that black women are now being comfronted with "smart-lesbian". Some of the most intelligent black women I know are single and have difficulty in the dating game when it comes to finding men that are not only intellectually compatiable, but also men that are respectful towards that notion. Our singleness, outspoken intelligence, and need to stand up for our rights by combating ignorance and hate unfortunately finds us labeled as "asexual" or "lesbian" because we are single. This is especially apparent in a college environment.

[Lex]

oops. most of my reply got cut off. though i'm not mad about the emphasis of the question.

i was mentioning that Audre Lorde and Barbara Omolade wrote a lot about "lesbian-baiting" or accusing black women of being lesbians if they were feminist, or independent or challenged male organizational leadership...or even for being single black mothers who put their children first. For them being called a lesbian basically meant you were challenging patriarchy. This is what led Alice Walker to say "we are all lesbians" even though she actually doesn't identify as a lesbian.

some of us are brave...you know? but Iresha I'd definitely love to hear more because we totally do need a conversation about why black women are punished for being as brilliant as we are that goes beyond the 40 year old Essence magazine coffee table complaint about there not being any marriagable black men blah blah blah. of course the Essence set often ends up scapegoating black gay men. i'd hate for "smart-lesbian" to start scapegoating black lesbians as well...when maybe a more accurate read on the situation is that patriarchy is neither healthy or sustainable for black people or any people...and is certainly not a viable context for black men and women to love each other within since it functions by dehumanizing....black men and black women all day every day.

thanks for keeping us thinking....



Lex said:

wait up homie! why lesbian gotta be in the same part of the hyphen as "ugly"tho%3

[Moya]

i was gonna say "but some of us are queer" got erased but you said it best!

Lex said:

oops. most of my reply got cut off. though i'm not mad about the emphasis of the question.

i was mentioning that Audre Lorde and Barbara Omolade wrote a lot about "lesbian-baiting" or accusing black women of being lesbians if they were feminist, or independent or challenged male organizational leadership...or even for being single black mothers who put their children first. For them being called a lesbian basically meant you were challenging patriarchy. This is what led Alice Walker to say "we are all lesbians" even though she actually doesn't identify as a lesbian.

some of us are brave...you know? but Iresha I'd definitely love to hear more because we totally do need a conversation about why black women are punished for being as brilliant as we are that goes beyond the 40 year old Essence magazine coffee table complaint about there not being any marriagable black men blah blah blah. of course the Essence set often ends up scapegoating black gay men. i'd hate for "smart-lesbian" to start scapegoating black lesbians as well...when maybe a more accurate read on the situation is that patriarchy is neither healthy or sustainable for black people or any people...and is certainly not a viable context for black men and women to love each other within since it functions by dehumanizing....black men and black women all day every day.

thanks for keeping us thinking....



Lex said:

wait up homie! why lesbian gotta be in the same part of the hyphen as "ugly"tho%3