BlackfeministsUK at SlutWalk Oxford 2012: Speech by Adunni Adams

This is a transcript of the speech given at the Oxford Slutwalk on Saturday 19th May 2012, Wadham College, Oxford

It is wonderful to be among you all today. This is one of a multitude of Slutwalks which have taken place across the world. The message is clear. Victim blaming in crimes against women is not acceptable. We stand unified against this. But we could be stronger. We could do more to ensure a true unity. The movement as a whole must look within and address its ability to be fair and honest in its acknowledgement, understanding and support of those for whom gender is not the single, substantial point of oppression. Our ability to debate and embrace intersectionalities is vital to a healthy feminist movement and a healthy women’s movement. Without the acknowledgment of race politics which specifically affect black women, there is weakness. Without open and integrated discussion about the discrimination of women on the basis of disability, there is weakness. Without a wholesale rejection of persecution and discrimination on the basis of religious belief or non-belief, there is weakness. Without a centralisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender oppressions there is weakness. We all operate separately if we choose to push aside these sites of oppression. Therefore I have come to ask you all to consider these things carefully, in your activism, in your politics and most importantly, in your personal choices. I invite you to challenge your own perceptions and norms, not just currently but always. Don’t settle for the ideas placed in front of you. Seek out your own truths. Of course, this is why so many of you are here today. You have questioned the blatant lies which course through the criminal justice systems here and across the world. Lies which prop up sexist values which blame women when we are victims of abuse. It justifies criminality by casting women as central actors in their own persecution. As much as this has brought us, and so many others across the world, out to demonstrate, we must come out in recognition of the complicity of intersecting prejudices in creating this very injustice. Thank You.