During the late 20th century, a time when white feminism was on the rise and Black women were charged with joining the “women’s liberation” cause, many Black women took a decidedly dismissive and cynical approach to the notion of feminism. And who can blame them? Under the unyielding and rigid white supremacist patriarchy of America, it has been tradition for white movements to exploit Black bodies, ultimately brutalizing and discarding them when they could no longer be used. The white feminist movement has only continued this cycle of profiteering.

Historically, white men and white women alike excluded Black women from their definition of womanhood, and from the conception of the struggle for white women’s suffrage in the mid 1800s to the series of campaigns for reforms on women’s reproductive rights and wages, Black women faced discrimination within the movement and betrayal at key moments of reward. Eleanor Smith’s “Historical relationships between Black and White Women” elucidates this tradition of brutalization and debasement when she references incidents of 1819 where a Black woman was stoned to death by three white women and where white women “refused to work beside Black women.” This, coupled with the white supremacist tactic of establishing intragroup subversion, entrenched in Black women a healthy mistrust of the white women’s rights crusade and their claims of global male privilege. Nevertheless, forced to choose between white women, who never had their interest in mind, and Black men, with whom they shared the oppression of white supremacy, Black women have been made to overlook the ways in which we are victims of the both the white gaze and Black male gaze. In similar suit, for the sake of a united front against white supremacy, activists like Niara Sudarkasa have used erasure to ignore Black Women’s dual oppression; claiming that Black Women should solely focus on the larger plight of white supremacy while ignoring its patriarchal manifestation within the Black community.

In a passage from "Strength of Our Mothers," entitled “Reflections on the Positions and Problems of Black Women in America,” Africanist, anthropologist, and activist, Niara Sudarkasa asserts that, “rather than recognizing the necessity [of taking] a united stand against individuals and institutions that would perpetuate oppression,” Black people have “been beguiled into debating the quality and quantity of the oppression meted out against us.” In this excerpt, Sudarkasa seems to be speaking specifically about Black women, whom she claims have been “[mislead]” into believing they face the “‘double jeopardy of racism and sexism.’” Here, with her use of the word “beguiled,” Sudarkasa suggests that there is no true oppression of Black women by Black men, only the oppression of Black people by white people. Sudarkasa argues that Black women who acknowledge both the experience of violence at the hands of white people and the experience of violence at the hands of Black men are simply “deceived.” In this manner, Sudarkasa erases the urgency and ignores the pattern of violence committed against Black women by Black men.

Although Sudarkasa may mockingly label Black women’s dual oppression of patriarchy and white supremacy a “double jeopardy,” one clear example of the existence of this phenomena is the heightened levels of domestic violence against Black Women. “Why Black Women Struggle More With Domestic Violence,” a "Time" piece by Feminista Jones, expounds on this pattern of abuse, stating that “one of the leading causes of death for Black women ages 15 to 35” is domestic violence, and that “Black women are almost three times as likely to experience death as a result of [domestic violence] than white women,” and reminding readers that Black women have the highest rates of intra-racial violence against them than any other group, yet are less likely to report or seek help when we are victimized. Here, Jones essentially explains that, while Black men are oppressed by white supremacy, their violence against Black women is sustained through patriarchy. Often, when women are facing domestic violence and call 911, it results in the summoned police officer arresting the victim of the violence - who is usually the woman - instead of the aggressor. In some police departments the percentage of domestic violence arrests of women has shot up to 30 to 40 percent of the arrests. In addition to this, because the justice system really operates to uphold white supremacy and Black abuse, Black women fear and hate the police with such an intensity that many of them don’t feel comfortable surrendering their Black male abuser to what they know is a deadly and dangerous justice system.

The consequences of a perfectly united front, or the refusal to acknowledge male privilege and violence within the Black community, has primarily affected those who are Black and feminine. Although racism and misogyny can be some of the biggest impediments to Black women, our strong sense of community loyalty along with white women’s traditional exclusion and exploitation of Black women, have lead to us to put our race before our other intersectional identities. Sudarkasa does this when she reduces the pattern of intra-racial violence against Black women to something that only exists on an individual level, and when she claims that Black women who recognize this pattern as something greater are “beguiled.” In this way, Sudarkasa shames women who acknowledge their double oppression; creating the false perception that intersectional Black women have a glorified image of their own victimization.