In Clinton’s case, it fell in the awkward time period, for me, when I was too young to remember living it and too old for it to be included in “history” classes in school. But I have to be honest and say that I am neither a political buff nor a history buff, and there were many specifics about the legislation and vocabulary used by recent administrations, even Clinton and Obama, who were both theoretically “blue” and progressive, that gave me pause for many reasons. Now, I read a lot, have read a lot, from the black female perspective…and I try to be vocal in recommending these books/essays and questioning the assumptions made by people around me when I see them carrying out the exact thought processes called out by authors similar to Cooper. Wells, suggestions and recommendations and critiques and hope that we can all use to help us move forwards.įor me, a white female who considers herself both a feminist and generally well aware of, and at least marginally working towards addressing, issues of race and class and sex/gender inequalities, I have finished this novel feeling partly disappointed in what I thought I knew. (Topics addressed, in this vein, include black female friendships, the myth of exceptionalism, respectability politics, relationships/sexuality/marriage struggles, economic worth, and more.) At the same time, Cooper offers, from her own opinions and experiences, as well as pulling from other black feminist leaders/sources like Audre Lorde ( whom I first read and loved earlier this year) and Ida B. And she speaks intelligently and evenly to the ways that both those groups, marginalized though they are, have further contributed to (and avoided helping out of), the circumstances of black women. And it’s well-deserved to be spent there since, as Cooper so thoroughly points out, the intersectionality of being black and female has put black women in a position that is more complex and even more marginalized than black men or white women alone. She of course mentions other issues of socioeconomic and race and sex and gender based inequalities, but, as I’ve already mentioned, the clear focus of the book is black women and girls, so that is where the majority of her time is spent. From segregation to the Clinton-era-beginning of the school-to-prison pipeline and coining of the term “welfare queen” to the Trump/Clinton presidential race, Cooper lays out with clear and precise language, exactly how, socially and legally, America’s prejudice against black woman has been ingrained and perpetuated. Yet the recent history is where her eloquence really shines through. Of course, as must needs be recognized, the start of that story, slavery, is given due mention. One of the things that struck me deepest about this collection is the accessibility of Cooper’s explanations about how contemporary history has create the institutionalized racism. And while this might help explain how the current state of affairs for black women has been reached, this collection does all that explaining and more for those of us, like myself, who are not black women and therefore must do our own work, confront our own complicity and role, in creating and changing the position that black women in America have been forced into. On the contrary, they already live their life every day.
Now, that does not mean, in any way, that only black women and girls should read this book. There’s a little bit of everything in this collection, from religion to politics to social structure to humor to pop culture to history, and it’s all presented with a singular, specific beneficiary audience: Black women and girls.
In this collection of essays, Cooper takes the oft-used negative terminology of the “angry black women” and takes it back, redefining it and owning it in the same way that the LGBTQ community has, in recent years, done with the word “queer.” And she does so with, in full deliverance of what the title promises, great eloquence. “Black girl feminisim is all the rage, and we need all the rage.” And it was the perfect chance to finally pick up this book. It was a weird stretch, but I absolutely stand by it. Anyways, the Just One More Pa(i)ge Reading Challenge prompt for July was “a book that falls under the #resist category” in honor of July 4 th. I’ve heard so many amazing things about this piece of nonfiction, and it’s impossible to deny the way that simple cover just catches the eye.
This book has been on my shelf for over a year.
0 kommentar(er)
