Using Google N-gram and select key words black women activists, theorists, and artists are historically situated within the legacy of black feminist theory. Maria Stewart’s clear rejection of the white hegemonic and patriarchal order when giving her speech is an early manifestation of a feminist, liberatory, and collective call to action for fellow black women. The Combahee River Collective as well emphasized the need for greater agency and political organizing among black women and their Statement challenged systems of racial and sexual domination. The notions of collectivism and women’s liberation continue within the women’s movement and fight for black power. Both Kimberlé Crenshaw and Angela Davis question the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal American judicial and policing structure that uphold mass incarceration and large scale prison systems as a profitable business investment. Black feminist activist mediums continue the legacy of movements and advance critique—Porsha O.’s explicit sexual imagery sheds light on the capitalist system, its control over the mind and the body, while Kai Davis’ poem denounces the biological determinist belief in intelligence as an innate feature of skin color. Both Meklit and Wanuri Kahiu’s art forms express radical love of different forms—the love of black aesthetic and a nurturing love for one’s environment.
- Crystal Orazu
Original upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaNEjA8moSA
Video Essay by Crystal Chinee Orazu for the course SP18 Black Women, Feminism(s), and Social Change, taught by Phyllis Jackson in the Spring of 2018 at Pomona College. Created for purposes only.
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