Humraaz Support Services embeds a black feminist approach.
The Combahee River Collective’s defining statement, issued in 1977, described its vision for Black feminism as opposing all forms of oppression later embedded in the concept of intersectionality. It went on to say ‘the most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of this oppression creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppression that all women of color face.’
As an organisation Humraaz Support Services aligns itself with the above statements and actively works in a black intersectional feminist way.
Within this approach the following principles apply:
- As an organisation we will always be run by black women for black women.
- Recognition of the intersectionality of Black women’s experiences including sexuality, gender identity, class, disability, and age oppression and actively working to develop inclusive practices and challenging inappropriate responses by agencies
- Validating Black ways of knowing and doing things
- Challenging oppression and the exclusion of Black people from the mainstream
- Taking account of distinct ways of behaving
- Acting as vehicles for presenting distinct Black ways of viewing and experiencing the world, and thinking about an individual’s place in the world
- Are concerned about difference and negative racial discrimination
- Taking account of the historical component in the experiences faced by Black communities
