This article contends that present-day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the ... more This article contends that present-day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the old and ongoing Black feminist struggle to name and diagnose Black patriarchy. In effort to redirect attention to the sexual/gendered intramural struggles within Black social life, this article reads selected texts by the Combahee River Collective, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks from the 1970s–1980s. Doing so illustrates the long tradition of Black feminist writing filled with rage –not at white women—but at Black men and with the expressed objective to eradicate patriarchy. Remembering these Black feminist analytic and activist efforts to challenge black women's sexual oppression reframes Black feminism as a singular project that calls out white women's racism to a broader liberatory one requiring confrontation with male power writ large and, in particular, Black male violence against Black women.
As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and a... more As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and abroad, black feminists have casted motherhood as a radical site of political resistance. This chapter historicizes popular and scholarly rhetorics of black mothering by returning to earlier black feminist voices from the 1970s and 80s. In doing so, this chapter points to the theoretical contours and elisions undergirding canonical and contemporary black feminist treatments of motherhood and family. Through close reading of personal reflections by black mothers and writers Martha Southgate and Alice Walker, the author argues for theorists to reassess motherhood’s celebrated status in black feminist discursive landscapes and begin rethinking motherhood as a burdensome site of gendered labor and psychic antagonism in the intimate spheres of black women’s lives.
Though the marginalization of women-of-color perspectives within feminism was a foundational impu... more Though the marginalization of women-of-color perspectives within feminism was a foundational impulse for the development of intersectionality as an analytic frame, the need remains for the deployment of intersectionality to theorize race within twenty-first-century contexts. Addressing this need, panelists 1 and 2 will advance intersectional perspectives on black women, with panelist 1 examining the paradoxes of intimacy inherent in the social construction of the black female domestic servant and with panelist 2 discussing the distinct inflections of a feminist perspective that centers the black female Muslim subject. Panelists 3 and 4 will focus on race and class intersections: panelist 3 will engage in an intersectional analysis of Asian migration in North Georgia, and panelist 4 will interrogate not only race-class intersections but also the concept of intersectionality itself, arguing that it often gets discussed at the level of the individual rather than that of systemic operations of power, such as race-class-based policymaking. Together, the panelists will demonstrate the ongoing salience of the concept of intersectionality for understanding race, gender, class, religion, and nationality within both the humanities and social sciences. This panel will fit with the conference theme by providing illustrative examples of intersectional research
This thesis articulates motherhood as both a liberal and black humanist formation that conditions... more This thesis articulates motherhood as both a liberal and black humanist formation that conditions black women to mother and attempts to untether maternity from the black female body. By centering maternal ambivalence—the desire and distaste for motherhood—in selected works by black women, this thesis argues that black motherhood is an ambivalent site for some black women. Motherhood can be a site of joy and displeasure; sacrifice and refusal; life and death. INDEX WORDS: Black Motherhood, Maternal Ambivalence, Black Feminism OUR SACRIFICE SHALL NOT BE REQUIRED: EXAMINING MATERNAL AMBIVALENCE AND REFUSAL IN BLACK MOTHERHOOD
Since the debut of the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight, scholars and critics have both ... more Since the debut of the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight, scholars and critics have both praised the film for its focus on Black men and sexuality, critiqued it for eclipsing the Black women characters. This paper takes this eclipse as its point of departure and considers the nexus of Black motherhood and the sexualized drug economy. Drawing on black feminist scholarship, sociological frameworks, and film analyses, we address the tropes that characterize the mothers and mother figures in the main character's life, consider the possibilities for healing and transformation under the circumstances of structural injury that shape their fictional lives in Liberty City.
This article contends that present‐day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the ... more This article contends that present‐day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the old and ongoing Black feminist struggle to name and diagnose Black patriarchy. In effort to redirect attention to the sexual/gendered intramural struggles within Black social life, this article reads selected texts by the Combahee River Collective, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks from the 1970s–1980s. Doing so illustrates the long tradition of Black feminist writing filled with rage –not at white women—but at Black men and with the expressed objective to eradicate patriarchy. Remembering these Black feminist analytic and activist efforts to challenge black women's sexual oppression reframes Black feminism as a singular project that calls out white women's racism to a broader liberatory one requiring confrontation with male power writ large and, in particular, Black male violence against Black women
As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and a... more As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and abroad, black feminists have casted motherhood as a radical site of political resistance. This chapter historicizes popular and scholarly rhetorics of black mothering by returning to earlier black feminist voices from the 1970s and 80s. In doing so, this chapter points to the theoretical contours and elisions undergirding canonical and contemporary black feminist treatments of motherhood and family. Through close reading of personal reflections by black mothers and writers Martha Southgate and Alice Walker, the author argues for theorists to reassess motherhood’s celebrated status in black feminist discursive landscapes and begin rethinking motherhood as a burdensome site of gendered labor and psychic antagonism in the intimate spheres of black women’s lives.
This article contends that present-day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the ... more This article contends that present-day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the old and ongoing Black feminist struggle to name and diagnose Black patriarchy. In effort to redirect attention to the sexual/gendered intramural struggles within Black social life, this article reads selected texts by the Combahee River Collective, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks from the 1970s–1980s. Doing so illustrates the long tradition of Black feminist writing filled with rage –not at white women—but at Black men and with the expressed objective to eradicate patriarchy. Remembering these Black feminist analytic and activist efforts to challenge black women's sexual oppression reframes Black feminism as a singular project that calls out white women's racism to a broader liberatory one requiring confrontation with male power writ large and, in particular, Black male violence against Black women.
As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and a... more As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and abroad, black feminists have casted motherhood as a radical site of political resistance. This chapter historicizes popular and scholarly rhetorics of black mothering by returning to earlier black feminist voices from the 1970s and 80s. In doing so, this chapter points to the theoretical contours and elisions undergirding canonical and contemporary black feminist treatments of motherhood and family. Through close reading of personal reflections by black mothers and writers Martha Southgate and Alice Walker, the author argues for theorists to reassess motherhood’s celebrated status in black feminist discursive landscapes and begin rethinking motherhood as a burdensome site of gendered labor and psychic antagonism in the intimate spheres of black women’s lives.
Though the marginalization of women-of-color perspectives within feminism was a foundational impu... more Though the marginalization of women-of-color perspectives within feminism was a foundational impulse for the development of intersectionality as an analytic frame, the need remains for the deployment of intersectionality to theorize race within twenty-first-century contexts. Addressing this need, panelists 1 and 2 will advance intersectional perspectives on black women, with panelist 1 examining the paradoxes of intimacy inherent in the social construction of the black female domestic servant and with panelist 2 discussing the distinct inflections of a feminist perspective that centers the black female Muslim subject. Panelists 3 and 4 will focus on race and class intersections: panelist 3 will engage in an intersectional analysis of Asian migration in North Georgia, and panelist 4 will interrogate not only race-class intersections but also the concept of intersectionality itself, arguing that it often gets discussed at the level of the individual rather than that of systemic operations of power, such as race-class-based policymaking. Together, the panelists will demonstrate the ongoing salience of the concept of intersectionality for understanding race, gender, class, religion, and nationality within both the humanities and social sciences. This panel will fit with the conference theme by providing illustrative examples of intersectional research
This thesis articulates motherhood as both a liberal and black humanist formation that conditions... more This thesis articulates motherhood as both a liberal and black humanist formation that conditions black women to mother and attempts to untether maternity from the black female body. By centering maternal ambivalence—the desire and distaste for motherhood—in selected works by black women, this thesis argues that black motherhood is an ambivalent site for some black women. Motherhood can be a site of joy and displeasure; sacrifice and refusal; life and death. INDEX WORDS: Black Motherhood, Maternal Ambivalence, Black Feminism OUR SACRIFICE SHALL NOT BE REQUIRED: EXAMINING MATERNAL AMBIVALENCE AND REFUSAL IN BLACK MOTHERHOOD
Since the debut of the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight, scholars and critics have both ... more Since the debut of the 2016 Academy Award-winning film Moonlight, scholars and critics have both praised the film for its focus on Black men and sexuality, critiqued it for eclipsing the Black women characters. This paper takes this eclipse as its point of departure and considers the nexus of Black motherhood and the sexualized drug economy. Drawing on black feminist scholarship, sociological frameworks, and film analyses, we address the tropes that characterize the mothers and mother figures in the main character's life, consider the possibilities for healing and transformation under the circumstances of structural injury that shape their fictional lives in Liberty City.
This article contends that present‐day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the ... more This article contends that present‐day focus of Black feminist anger at white women obscures the old and ongoing Black feminist struggle to name and diagnose Black patriarchy. In effort to redirect attention to the sexual/gendered intramural struggles within Black social life, this article reads selected texts by the Combahee River Collective, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks from the 1970s–1980s. Doing so illustrates the long tradition of Black feminist writing filled with rage –not at white women—but at Black men and with the expressed objective to eradicate patriarchy. Remembering these Black feminist analytic and activist efforts to challenge black women's sexual oppression reframes Black feminism as a singular project that calls out white women's racism to a broader liberatory one requiring confrontation with male power writ large and, in particular, Black male violence against Black women
As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and a... more As the global Movement for Black Life continues its demands to end state violence in the US and abroad, black feminists have casted motherhood as a radical site of political resistance. This chapter historicizes popular and scholarly rhetorics of black mothering by returning to earlier black feminist voices from the 1970s and 80s. In doing so, this chapter points to the theoretical contours and elisions undergirding canonical and contemporary black feminist treatments of motherhood and family. Through close reading of personal reflections by black mothers and writers Martha Southgate and Alice Walker, the author argues for theorists to reassess motherhood’s celebrated status in black feminist discursive landscapes and begin rethinking motherhood as a burdensome site of gendered labor and psychic antagonism in the intimate spheres of black women’s lives.
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