Cuz a dreamer never sleeps

medievalpoc:

Unknown (formerly att. Johann Zoffany)

Dido Elizabeth Belle

Scotland (1779)

oil on canvas

Scone Palace, Perth (private collection of the Earl of Mansfield)

Although this painting falls outside the usual scope of this blog, it is one of my favorite historical European paintings. Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and enslaved African woman named Belle.

This painting was most likely commissioned by her father, the nephew of the Earl of Mansfield, and depicts the beautiful and vivacious Belle alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray.

The first time I saw this painting was in an art history classroom, accompanied by a story regarding the dehumanization of Africans in the Unites States, and the scores of visiting Americans who were scandalized by this painting. In America and several places in Europe, contemporaneous paintings always depicted people considered Black in subservient positions in relation to people considered White, if they bothered to paint them at all. To raise a bastard daughter of color alongside legitimate heirs was antithetical to American thought.

Dido Belle was raised and educated alongside the other highborn daughters of the household, and remained a favorite of the Earl and her father well into her thirties, after which an advantageous marriage was arranged.

Her position in the Earl’s household supervising the poultry yards was typical for any lady of high birth at the time, but her job overseeing the lord’s correspondence was usually a task reserved for a highly educated male clerk or scribe and is evidence of her importance and elevated rank. She received an allowance of £30 per year, more than any except the heiress herself and a sum unheard of at the time for any illegitimate daughter.

Upon Lord Mansfield’s death in 1788, Belle was furnished with a £500 lump sum in addition to a £100 annuity, as well as a suitable marriage to John Davinier, with whom she had three children. In Mansfield’s will, her status as a free person was carefully confirmed, since many would have been all too happy to divest her of her fortune.

Belle died in 1804 and was interred in St. George’s Fields, the parish to which she and her husband belonged.

My interest in this story was renewed recently when I learned that an upcoming film, Belle (currently in production), will be a dramatized biopic of Dido Elizabeth Belle’s life. The titular role will be played by South African actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

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reclaimingthelatinatag:

Vilma Lucila Espín Guillois (April 7, 1930 – June 18, 2007) was a Cuban revolutionary, feminist and chemical engineer. She was one of the most important fighters in the struggle for Cuban women’s equality as well as fighting against the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.

Vilma studied chemical engineering at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts before meeting revolutionary leader Frank País in Havana in the 1950s. The meeting led Espín to become a leader of the revolutionary movement in Oriente province. Espín acted as a messenger between the movement and Fidel Castro’s revolutionary underground 26th of July Movement, which had been relocated to Mexico in order to plan a future invasion. It was in Mexico that Espín met Raúl Castro. She then went on to assist the revolutionaries in the Sierra Maestra mountains after the 26th of July Movement’s return to Cuba on the Granma yacht. She and Raúl married in January 1959.

Vilma Espín headed the Cuban Delegation to the First Latin American Congress on Women and Children in Chile in September 1959. She also headed the Cuban delegations to the Conferences on Women held in Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi and Beijing.

Espín was President of the Federation of Cuban Women from its foundation in 1960 until her death. The organization is a recognized non-government organization which claims a membership of more than three and a half million women. Espín was also a member of the Council of State of Cuba, as well as a member of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1980 to 1991.

She died in La Habana at 4:14 p.m. EDT on June 18, 2007, following a long illness. 

wocinsolidarity:

waywardmarbles:

thisiswhiteprivilege:

bougieblack:

think-progress:

Susan B. Anthony, badass.

Lest we forget Susan B. Anthony sought voting rights for women because she was offended that black men were allowed to vote and she wasn’t, even though, as she said, their brains weren’t capable of understanding politics. Susan B. Anthony, racist.

White privilege is Susan B. Anthony being an American hero. White privilege not understand why black folks should be skeptical of mainstream feminism when this white supremacist is one of the most seminal figures in the feminist movements.

Is it possible to acknowledge she did good things, for the wrong reasons and for a limited amount of people (white women of middle-to-upper class)? Like, she did some radical things, but her motivations were shitty at best.

Is it erasure or apologism to try and do both?

i kind of have to ask why you are here….at wocinsolidarity, if you can say such a thing. motivations matter. the “radical things” she did gave the vote to other racist upper class white women who in turn only voted to maintain the status quo…that of inequality for decades to come.

what nice things do we, as women of color, have to say about a woman who sought to uplift other wealthy white women to trample us? why should we protect her legacy?