Let Black Women Lead

Did you know that less than 10 percent of the U.S. Congress are women of color? There are only 30 Black women in Congress. Black women have the stereotype of being “strong”, but remain critically underrepresented in leadership. How do we all work to make this right? 

For our last episode of season 2, producer Jeanette Harris Courts will sit down with NOW’s National President Christian F. Nunes. Christian reflects on her experiences as a Black woman in leadership, how the Equal Rights Amendment is particularly critical for women of color, and why feminism requires a commitment to social justice. 

Take Action NOW: https://now.org/issues/promoting-diversity-ending-racism/ 

Register for the NOW Racial Justice Summit: https://now.org/rjs2024/  

Listen to new episodes of Feminism NOW released every other Wednesday. To find out more about the National Organization for Women, visit our website.

Creators & Guests

Host

Christian Nunes

Producer

Bethany Brookshire

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

Producer

Jeanette Harris-Courts

What is Feminism NOW?

Passionate about modern feminist issues? Want to learn more about how today's political, academic, and cultural leaders strive for a future of universal equality and justice?

Join NOW President Christian F. Nunes in a new podcast dedicated to intersectional feminist discussions in American society with leaders in entertainment, sports, politics, and science. From conversations on constitutional equality, to economic justice and reproductive rights, listeners will find new ways to learn, engage, and get empowered.

Listen for new episodes released every other Wednesday.

Christian F. Nunes (00:07):
Welcome back to Feminism NOW, a podcast featuring leaders and activists who are on the front lines of the fight for constitutional equality, economic justice, and reproductive frights. I'm Christian F. Nunes, the president of the National Organization for Women.

(00:23):
This is our last episode of Season 2. Throughout this season, we have been focusing on women leading democracy, and many of those women are women of color. Black women in particular have been leaders throughout the history of America. Black women are leading in democracy right now from the current vice president to the leaders at the local level.

(00:46):
However, we are continuing to have an intersectional fight as Black women for our rights, as well as fighting for the rights of others. For this episode, we are flipping the script because I, Christian F. Nunes, am not only the national president of NOW, but I am also a proud Black woman, and I'm here to talk about democracy.

Jeanette Harris Courts (01:16):
Hi, everyone. I'm Jeanette Harris Courts, and I'm a producer here at Feminism NOW. For our last episode this season, we're doing something a little different. The theme of this season of Feminism NOW has been women leading democracy. As our season came to a close, we wanted to have a guest one who was a woman of color who could speak directly about being a leader in this country. Then we realized we already have one.

(01:44):
Christian F. Nunes, our host, is the national president of the National Organization for Women. She's a second African-American president of the organization and the youngest president in 40 years. In her time in leadership at NOW, Christian has organized five racial justice summits. She started to unlock the future campaign demanding humane treatment for detained immigrant families and has led the creation of a bill of rights for immigrant women and girls. Today she's our guest. Christian, welcome to the show.

Christian F. Nunes (02:18):
Thank you for having me, Jeanette.

Jeanette Harris Courts (02:20):
Yeah. How does this feel? The coin flipped a bit.

Christian F. Nunes (02:23):
Interesting. It feels interesting.

Jeanette Harris Courts (02:26):
Yeah. For me too. I'm usually in a black square where no one can see me, but excited to talk to you more and learn a little bit more about you. Like I had mentioned at the beginning, you came into this position during a really historic time, I think for all of us, August 2020, the summer of COVID, if we all remember. It was very much a rough time for everyone, but particularly women of color, especially Black women with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. I'm sure children are going to be learning about this in textbooks come 20... Not even 50, 20 years from now. You know what I mean? What did it feel like to take presidency during that?

Christian F. Nunes (03:05):
Yeah. It was really interesting. I think it was lots of different chaotic situations happening at one time, and for our own organization, we were going through our own period of change, like a little chaotic change. Then on top of that, there were different things going on with Black individuals, Black communities fighting for recognition and acknowledgement for our lives. Then you also had COVID happening where people were dying in hundreds of thousands. We were shut down. People were fighting for toilet paper. People were fighting for food. People were losing their jobs. Everything was in chaos. People were in crisis. People didn't even know what was going to happen to them from the next point in time.

(03:53):
Then here it is, I'm starting to run an organization that is a legacy organization that's been around for 50 something years, but also have operated on a very grassroots style, so we weren't really into social media. We didn't have a lot of the things. We weren't doing webinars. We weren't doing Zooms. To come into this position, it was really like how do we come in, figure out a way to keep our members engaged, understand the importance of racial justice in this movement? Especially for a predominantly white feminist organization, why it was important for us to engage in this space as well, so much things going on.

(04:33):
I think it was a point in time where it was really important for me to speak out about the importance of racial justice and solidarity in the space of feminism and making the connection for intersectional feminism and why racial justice was so important to the feminist space at that time, and how we connected George Floyd and how we connected Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland, and how we connected all these different things that are happening.

(04:58):
And even COVID, how that was impacting feminists and women, how we connected those issues to the struggle of women and girls. It really was the time for me to take charge and move into a space of talking about intersexual feminism and why that was so important to our movement and the way that we can move forward in our advocacy. And that's the charge I took.

Jeanette Harris Courts (05:20):
Thank you for it. You touched on it, but I'm curious if you wanted to add more about the importance of leading NOW, which happens to be a particularly more white dominant space as a Black woman, how did that feel to take that role on? What was the importance for that for you?

Christian F. Nunes (05:39):
One of the things I think is always important to talk about NOW is NOW it had multiracial co-founders. And I think one of the things, and I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this, is that what happens a lot of time in the feminist movement is that the Black and brown, indigenous women have been early on in the movement for their contributions.

(06:00):
And this actually goes back to the whole struggle of feminism and suffragists movement where the fight for the votes, women's vote and everything, where Black women and brown women were there, particularly Black women where were involved very early on with helping to secure the vote, helping doing the organizing, helping to do the work to get the right to vote. But after that work was done, we're somewhat erased and pushed back, and the work that they did was erased, and then we pushed them back and just said, "Well, help us get our rights first, and then once we get our rights, then we'll help you get your rights."

(06:41):
But then what's happened is once we helped everyone else get their rights, then everyone was like, "Well, we've moved on. We don't, don't have time. Now we're onto something else. You just have to deal." And so Black women never ever got their rights. And then this was for brown women too, and indigenous women and Asian women. It's not just Black women. I'm speaking to Black women. This is about Black women today.

(07:05):
I think that even with our organization NOW, we had co-founders, particularly two that I'm going to speak about. Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray and Eileen Hernandez were two Black women co-founders. And then we had a member who was the second part of co-founder member of Shirley Chisolm, who were extremely crucial in helping build NOW for a very long time. Nobody knew that. Nobody ever really recognized them as members of NOW, are huge important parts of co-founders of NOW.

(07:37):
And Betty Friedan actually reached out to Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray and asked her to talk with her about starting this organization and helped develop a statement of purpose and things like that. And Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray, brilliant, she wrote the Constitution of Ghana. She's just a brilliant individual who's really helped shape so many crucial parts of education for us. Ruth Gay Ginsburg's even references her in her work and gives her credit for so many things.

(08:10):
But for so long we never heard about them. And Shirley Chisholm even too, we didn't really hear about Shirley Chisholm until she ran for office. And then still no one really mentioned that she's a NOW a member. I think that what we've seen is that many times Black women just haven't really truly been given the credit they need to have been given in the spaces that they need to give, but they have been so instrumental in creating this movement in this space for us. If anything, they've let the ground for feminism.

(08:39):
And so as I've done this work, I try to always make sure I give credit to those women that I know have been important for this work, but also making sure that they're being recognized. Because a lot of times they're not recognized. But I think that continues to be a huge experience for Black women leaders is that oftentimes we're called on to do this work and to help shift things and change things and fix chaos. But then once we fix it, then it's like, "Okay, thank you. You're done. We're good with you."

Jeanette Harris Courts (09:15):
You're speaking so much into the strong Black woman narrative that I think a lot of us feel the need to fulfill. I'm speaking as a Black woman, and it's sad because yes, I don't like to feed into stereotypes, but that one I can claim most of the Black woman I know are the strongest people I know in my life. When it comes down to it, yes, we're strong and taking on these roles and making these things happen. Legislations happen, but yet the recognition's not there. And I think that's what's so important about people like you who is putting Black voices on a higher lens so they're being heard and those histories are being heard because it takes Black voices sometimes to reiterate the stories that we're just not educated on in this space and this world.

Christian F. Nunes (10:01):
And I also think sometimes, unfortunately, people expect us to be in that role even when we don't want to, right? Sometimes I don't want to be the strong Black woman. Not that I'm not strong. I am a very strong Black woman, but I don't want to be this trope role all the time. I have my days, I just want to chill. I don't want to solve all the problems every day in the world.

(10:24):
But unfortunately, it's like a double-edged sword, right? It's a positive stereotype, but it's also negative stereotype because at the same time, it's used against us as much as it's used to glorify us because as soon as us one doesn't like what we do, it turns into the angry Black woman. And that's what makes it hard.

Jeanette Harris Courts (10:45):
That's what makes it hard. Christian. Yes, indeed. Yes. So NOW is working endlessly when it comes to promoting the rights of women and democracy, especially at this day and age. So can you talk a little bit about why it's so important for women of color to be leaders in democracy?

Christian F. Nunes (11:03):
I mean, generally women already have a hard time getting support in leadership positions, especially when they're looking at Congress, elected official positions. There is automatically this place where we just don't support women. We believe that women don't have the capabilities of leading. And then on top of that, when you're looking at women of color, women of color are supported less, and then women of color are not funded to make them successful enough to be able to have successful campaigns. No one invests in women. They don't invest in women. They don't see the value of women. They know women are valuable, but they don't put the value in women like they should.

(11:45):
And so I always say there's this thing where we want to piecemeal women, we want to break us apart. We don't want to see women as whole. We want to piecemeal us. We want to see a little bit of our value for here, a little bit of our value for here, a little bit of our value for here, but we don't want to see us as whole valued beings. And that keeps people justifying why they never ever invest in policy. That's helpful for this is why it's easy for people to justify us. That's easy why we don't have laws that fully protect. That's easy why if we talk about Equal Rights Amendment, that's easy why we still have not enshrined that into the Constitution because that would require them to recognize women as whole, recognize women as valued and recognize women as needing to be protected fully in our Constitution. That will require them to see us as whole and equal. And they don't want to do that, but it's easier for people to piecemeal us. And that's what people constantly do to women.

(12:42):
And now when you're a woman of color, you're even devalued even more. They devalue you more. They don't see you. They see Black women, they adultify Black girls. There's adulification of Black girls. There's the hypersexualization of Black girls and Black women. An extra level of aggression is put toward Black women. So Black women are seen more aggressive like men. They're not seen as needing protection or care. That's one part.

(13:12):
Then there's a whole nother of gaslighting that occurs anytime a Black woman does stand her ground and does speak out for herself, to advocate for herself to say what she does need and is required. When Black women do speak out and say, "These are the things I need to be safe. These are the things I need to take care of my family. These are the things that I need to do the right things." And they're advocating for these legislations. And there's the whole level of gaslighting that happens to tell them, "No, you don't. You don't need these things. Because essentially they're telling us that we're not worthy.

Jeanette Harris Courts (13:44):
Exactly. Exactly. I'm happy you brought up policy in general, period. But I really want to talk more about something that NOW is working endlessly again to get in motion. The ERA, the equal Rights amendment. Yes, I would like to know more about what NOW has been doing as a consistent partner in that, and then also how you feel about this piece of policy and how it can shift the rights for women of color and democracy.

Christian F. Nunes (14:17):
Yeah. The ERA is extremely important to protect women of color, extremely important to protect women in general because what it does is it protects sex under the law and gender equality under the law. And right now that is not in the Constitution. And what that does is it prevents any loopholes. It would prevent any way legal frameworks that would avoid people to say things like, "Well, technically I don't have to do this because the law says that you're technically not covered."

(14:55):
It's like what we saw. If you really think about what happened with the Dobbs decision, a big part of that decision was made because they were saying that technically there's nothing that the Constitution says that this has to be a protected, right. I'm summarizing of course, but basically it's kind like, "Well, nothing was really in the Constitution that would say that we have to protect this right under gender or sex, whatever." So they have a right to basically overturn this because nothing in our Constitution supports this.

(15:30):
Now, if we were enshrined in the Constitution and the Equal Rights Amendment was there, they could never have done that because sex would've been protected under the Constitution. And especially when we look at women of color who often get cases thrown out and cases not heard and cases put to the side and rape cases and things like that, and they have all these technicalities. If these protections, if we're protected under the law, that would prevent any of these minor technicalities, any of these things, it would hold these courts accountable. It would hold law enforcement, the justice system accountable for making sure that people are protected and that they're upholding their end. It would hold a sense of accountability that we currently do not have.

(16:23):
So NOW has been working on the Equal Rights Amendment as long as the organization has been existent and we're still working on it, we're still pushing for it, we're still meeting with congressional members, we're still pushing in our states to have our states continue to work on getting the Equal Rights Amendment enshrined in their states as well so there's state protections, not just on the federal level, but their state protections as well.

Jeanette Harris Courts (16:46):
Okay, Christian, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk more about Black women leading democracy and look back on our season. But first, let's take some action now.

Christian F. Nunes (16:58):
We're excited to let you know about our upcoming national conference, which will be held virtually from July 19 to July 21. Such a wonderful opportunity for all of us to get excited about NOW and find community with each other. This year's topic is Women Will Save Democracy, No Democracy Without Intersectionality, and we're thrilled to present speakers in the action oriented workshops, and it's your chance to get involved. Oh yeah. And it's election year for the National Now Board. Go to now.org to register for the conference, and we hope to see you there. Join us at our meeting and help us take action now. And now back to our interview.

Jeanette Harris Courts (17:43):
So NOW has a long and important history in addressing racial inequality. Current initiatives are based on getting intersectional feminism into every piece of policy that NOW supports. What does an intersectional feminist piece of policy look like?

Christian F. Nunes (18:02):
I want to separate intersectional feminism from racial justice because those are two different things. So an intersectional feminist policy is not necessarily a racial justice policy. There's something where you were looking at something from a racial justice lens where you're making sure that every piece of policy is acknowledging where there might be racial inequities and systematic racisms that may lie, or problems where racial inequities can exist within that policy. And not super important.

(18:34):
And one of the things when I became president is that I wanted to make sure that we looked everything from a racial justice lens so that we looked everything and said, "Okay, is there anything in here that could possibly create racial injustice for this population that we're serving or the community that we're serving? Is this policy creating more barriers? Is this policy actually feeding into things?" That's how we looked at it.

(19:06):
And I think that's really important because sometimes it's not even intentional that things happen, but they can happen because the truth of it is that United States was built on Black and white. Racial imbalance, racial inequities, the imbalance of that white power, Black impower that servitude slavery.

(19:30):
This is the truth about our country, chattel slavery. And so when we're talking about that, it was built on that. And so those systems are still existing and imbalances are still existent to this day. We haven't erased them yet. There's still racism that still exist, and we still have a redlining, right? We have predatory lending. We have racial gerrymandering. We have so many things that still exist where we see racism still built into our systems.

(20:00):
Better yet, the electoral college is part of the problem too, because it was built on a system of counting slaves for votes when you knew slaves didn't even have the right to vote in the first place. This is our system. This is how America was built. It was never built on fairness ever. It was built on subjugation, oppression and power. And so when we still use those things today to operate and we talk about everyone, pull yourself by the boot straps, everyone has the same advantage to achieve.

(20:37):
It's not true. It is not true at all. People do not. People still don't. We still have the wage gap. We have the wage gap where women earn less than men, but Black women, Latina women, Asian women, Native American women even earn less. I mean, when you look at this, so how can we say that racism doesn't exist? How can we say the color of your skin doesn't impact your experience every single day in your life?

(21:07):
We have to look at those things. We have to look at the fact that right now we have a candidate that's running for president who is a convicted felon and has 34 felonies, and he's allowed to run for president and may have to run for president behind bars. However, we still require people to put on their applications that they're a convicted felon that will prevent them from getting some housing that will prevent them from being able to get an apartment that'll prevent them from being able to get a job. But this man can run for president of United States America with 34 felonies, and we won't let people work at a restaurant with a felony.

(21:51):
I mean, do you see the hypocrisy in this, right? This is disadvantage, this is white advantage. This is racism, right? That we have this existing and we say, "No, everyone has the same." No, there's not fairness in this. There's a problem when it's not a consistency. And that's where we're seeing racism built into the system. Where we're not holding the same standard for everyone.

(22:18):
And so that's why the work that we have to do has to have a racial justice lens, because otherwise, if we don't acknowledge those things and we're trying to help people and we're trying to fight for people and do advocacy, but we're not willing to recognize those things, we're doing a disservice. If we're doing intersectional feminism work, then we're looking at those multiple identities that people carry and how the different layers of oppression and discrimination and the power that plays into that and how that impacts a person. It's two different things, but they work parallel together.

(22:50):
We have to pay attention to these things because those different identities are going to be very different for each person, and we can't put everybody in the same jar and expect that our advocacy work is going to be the same and the narrative is going to be the same for each person.

Jeanette Harris Courts (23:03):
Thank you for saying that and making the distinction. I think that's so important. I do think sometimes when we start talking about racial injustice and intersectionality, feminism, they do get construed, and people do think that they're all one and the same, but there are differences that we need to recognize and push forward because yes, they're parallel and they're going their own directions, but we need to push them at the same time, so we're getting the momentum that we want to see.

(23:28):
You mentioned a little bit about women's issues and promoting action on that. I just want to talk a little bit more about the work that you're doing at NOW as the national president in those spaces. What made you want to pursue doing stuff that's going to reach different audiences in ways that you have? This podcast, for instance, what made you pursue it in this way to get that word out there?

Christian F. Nunes (23:55):
I first wanted to acknowledge I have a team and with our team, our Office of National Action Center is what we call our team. And we worked together very closely to do everything. And I think our team is how we're able to carry through our national message and campaign. We work very hard and very close together to make this work for the National Organization of Women.

(24:18):
And one of the things was how do we reach more audience? How do we get our message out there more and help people really understand what intersectional feminism looks like? And one of the ways is podcasting is a great way to do that and let people understand what's going on and how the different issues that everyday people experience are related to this fight for intersectional feminism and this approach and this strategy that we're doing. And so we decided to use that as our platform to be able to connect what we're doing as an organization.

Jeanette Harris Courts (24:54):
We're wrapping up season two. Can you believe it?

Christian F. Nunes (24:57):
Went by so fast.

Jeanette Harris Courts (24:59):
So fast. You had some great episodes this season. I'm just curious, do you have an interview that you continue to think about?

Christian F. Nunes (25:08):
I really enjoyed the episode about raising the wage. I think that was really important. I enjoyed the most recent one we did about leading democracy and just the importance of having action with your democracy and with your cause and how important that is. I really enjoyed, I think there was something from each one that I think that just really stuck with me. They're all so great, and I just really enjoyed all of the guests and all of the conversations that were had. I mean, there were some really great conversations. I just really enjoyed all of them, when I think about it.

Jeanette Harris Courts (25:54):
Yes. With that being said, I'm curious if we heard from wonderful activists, politicians, journalists. You started the season strong with Heather Booth and then you ended it with V Spehar, which when you think about the range there, you went from a civil rights movement leader all the way to our current rights leader for young youth at this moment. So you really did the whole full rainbow of people in between as well. I'm just curious if there's somebody or some topic that felt unifying or some message that felt unifying between all the guests that you had on this season.

Christian F. Nunes (26:32):
I think for all the guests, I feel like all of them really spoke to following your purpose and also leading with authenticity. That's what I really got about it. They all talked about making sure that somehow we were centering the persons and leading from authenticity and just purpose driven was what I picked up from all of them.

(26:55):
And that was really great, and I really enjoyed that because I think that's sometimes what gets lost in the work that we do is forgetting to be purpose driven and forgetting to center the communities that we're working with in our advocacy work. That is our purpose. We're supposed to be working to make people's lives better, and if we are not centering them, we can't do that effectively.

Jeanette Harris Courts (27:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. I'm curious to know what you think about the theme from this season. The theme was Women Leading Democracy, and I'd say you did a really great job highlighting all the issues that women are discussing in my sphere at least, especially with the upcoming election. You talked about on multiple episodes, the abortion rights that we're facing right now and the LGBTQ rights that a lot of youth are facing, especially our trans youth. With all that being said, are there any topics that you wish we could have talked on or didn't touch on or go into more in depth with this season?

Christian F. Nunes (28:02):
I think we had a great mixture of leaders that represented a lot of great things and strong leaders that showed the strength in everyone, and I was really happy about that. One thing I wanted to say earlier, and I didn't say is as we talk about this episode about Black women leading, is that I would just encourage everyone to support Black women. You cannot go wrong with supporting a Black woman. Black women, I believe, with democracy, look out for the best interest of everyone.

(28:39):
I just want to encourage everyone that Black women are capable. We're beautiful, we're wonderful. We know how to lead. We just need people support us in our authenticity as we are, and look at us as whole as we are so that we can lead in our own abilities. And I think when we get to that place, it's amazing the things that can get accomplished.

Jeanette Harris Courts (29:06):
Okay. Well, my last question was going to be "Christian, what's your call to action for our listeners?" You may have just spilled the tea a little early, which is good. But if that isn't, I'm curious to hear what is it that you'd like to say at the end of this season? What is your call to action for the people listening to this show?

Christian F. Nunes (29:29):
I think my overall call to action for people listening to this show is that find your purpose. Find your particular purpose, not what someone tells you what your purpose is. What your purpose is for you. And start somewhere and start living and beginning to live in that purpose. And don't be afraid of it. Don't be afraid of failing. Don't be afraid of starting over, but start living in that purpose. And when you start living the purpose of guarantee, you'll benefit somebody else.

Jeanette Harris Courts (30:02):
Christian, thank you so much for all the time that you've given us, your enthusiasm and the leadership you provide here on the show and at NOW. And personally, I'd like to say as a Black woman in America, it's beautiful just to see the work that you're doing. I feel like you give, I'm a millennial, you give me a lot of inspiration to just keep going and push the younger generation, Gen Z to do more and get active and be involved with politics. Because we've seen a lot in the last few years, and I think a lot of people hear what's going on in politics, and it almost sounds like it's an SNL skit, but it's really what's happening. It can be hard to care. But I appreciate seeing how much you care because it pushes me to care.

Christian F. Nunes (30:45):
And that is a wrap for Season 2. Listeners, thank you so much for joining us for such a dynamic and hopeful season. We're taking a break, but we'll be back in a few weeks, where we'll bring you even more stories of local and national feminism in Season 3. If you've enjoyed our discussions, if you felt inspired, challenged, or even just entertained by our episodes, I'm asking you to share Feminism NOW with a friend. Think about that friend if you loved our conversations, or that friend who's just started to explore these issues deeper. Send them a link to your favorite episode this season. Tell them why you love Feminism NOW and why you think they'll love it too.

(31:30):
The more voices we have in this conversation, the stronger we become. This podcast, Feminism NOW is production of the National Organization for Women. I'm Christian F. Nunez, NOW's National President. If you like what you hear, please go to now.org. Read up on our core issues and our approach to advancing women's equality and get involved, and we'd love to hear from you. Send your thoughts to [e-mail]. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon.