Seeking the Beloved Community
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SEEKING THE BELOVED COMMUNITY JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb i 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 SUNY series, Philosophy and Race 2 Robert Bernasconi and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, editors 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb iiii 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 4 5 SEEKING THE 6 7 BELOVED 8 9 COMMUNITY 10 11 12 A Feminist Race Reader 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Joy James 29 30 Foreword by Beverly Guy-Sheftall 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb iiiiii 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Published by State University of New York Press, Albany 10 11 © 2013 State University of New York 12 All rights reserved 13 14 Printed in the United States of America 15 16 No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without 17 written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or trans- 18 mitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, 19 mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. 20 21 For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY 22 www.sunypress.edu 23 24 Production by Ryan Morris 25 Marketing by Anne Valentine 26 27 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 28 James, Joy 29 Seeking the beloved community : a feminist race reader / Joy James. 30 p. cm. — (SUNY series, philosophy and race) 31 Includes bibliographical references and index. 32 ISBN 978-1-4384-4633-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Womanism—United States. 33 2. Feminism—United States. 3. African American women—Intellectual life. 34 4. African American women—Political activity. I. Title. 35 HQ1197.J36 2013 305.420973—dc23 36 2012018269 37 38 39 40 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb iviv 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 4 5 To the cyborg maternals and ghost warriors— 6 7 Chicago Mamie Tills; Oakland Georgia Jacksons; 8 Soweto and São Paulo mothers Dona Marias— 9 all who made and make the impossible demand 10 to the omnipotent state, its allies, and apologists: 11 “Resurrect the child you killed.” 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb v 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 Contents 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Foreword ix 11 Beverly Guy-Sheftall 12 Acknowledgments xi 13 14 Part I. Feminist Race Theory 15 16 1. Teaching Theory, Talking Community 3 17 18 2. Politicizing the Spirit: Toni Morrison 9 19 3. Black Feminism in Liberation Limbos 25 20 21 4. Resting in Gardens, Battling in Deserts: 37 22 Black Women’s Activism 23 24 5. Radicalizing Black Feminism 47 25 6. Angela Y. Davis: Liberation Praxis 67 26 27 7. Assata Shakur and Black Female Agency 93 28 29 Part II. Democracy and Captivity 30 31 8. Democracy and Captivity 119 32 33 9. Black Suffering in Search of the “Beloved Community” 143 34 10. American Prison Notebooks 153 35 36 11. Violations 185 37 12. War, Dissent, and Social Justice 197 38 39 13. Academia, Activism, and Imprisoned Intellectuals 207 40 vii JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb viivii 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM viii Contents 11 22 Part III. Sovereign Political Subjects 33 14. Activist Scholars or Radical Subjects? 215 44 55 15. Campaigns Against Blackness 223 66 16. Sovereign Kinship and the President Elect 251 77 88 17. The Dead Zone 269 99 1010 18. Racism, Genocide, and Resistance 293 1111 19. “All Power to the People!”: Arendt’s Communicative 307 1212 Power in a Racial Democracy 1313 1414 1515 1616 1717 1818 1919 2020 2121 2222 2323 2424 2525 2626 2727 2828 2929 3030 3131 3232 3333 3434 3535 3636 3737 3838 3939 4040 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb viiiviii 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 Foreword 4 5 Beverly Guy-Sheftall 6 7 8 9 10 . we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, 11 heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task 12 the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon 13 the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. 14 The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of 15 our lives. As black women we see black feminism as the logical 16 political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous 17 oppressions that all women of color face. 18 —The Combahee River Collective, 1983 19 20 . dissidents are anchored to revolutionary possibilities 21 that demand both intellectual discipline and irrepressible 22 courage to speak the unspeakable, to stand alone if neces- 23 sary, and to accept the material and emotional consequences 24 of tramping over hegemony’s “holy” ground. 25 —Antonia Darder, 2011 26 27 28 I am reminded while reading Joy James’s provocative essay collec- 29 tion, Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Theory Reader, 30 of Antonia Darder’s riveting anthology, A Dissident Voice: Essays 31 in Culture, Pedagogy, and Power. Educators, scholars, endowed 32 professors, activists, critical race theorists, dissidents—James and 33 Darder emerge from marginalized/racialized communities in the 34 United States and Puerto Rico. It is important to embrace the 35 dissident women among us, so often maligned and misunderstood. 36 For nearly two decades, Joy James’s dissenting voice has been 37 loud and unrelenting, beginning with the publication of her first 38 book, Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. 39 Culture (1996), followed by Shadowboxing: Representations of Black 40 ix JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb ixix 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM x Foreword 1 Feminist Politics and Transcending the Talented Tenth: Black Leaders 2 and American Intellectuals. Her edited books include Spirit, Space 3 and Survival: African American Women in (White) Academe; Warfare 4 in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy; 5 The New Abolitionists: (Neo) Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison 6 Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals: America’s Political Prisoners Write on 7 Life, Liberation, and Rebellion; States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, 8 and Prisons; The Black Feminist Reader; and The Angela Y. Davis Reader. 9 One of the most prolific and radical, black feminist scholars, she 10 is completing a book on interracial rape cases, tentatively titled, 11 Memory, Shame, and Rage. 12 Like the Angela Y. Davis Reader that James edited, her own 13 feminist race theory reader underscores the heterogeneity of 14 contemporary black feminist discourse, a perennial theme in 15 James’s writings. Like dissident Angela Davis and the architects of 16 the Combahee River Collective document above, Joy James emerges 17 from a robust African American left tradition that is anticapitalist, 18 anti-imperialist, and passionately critical of the U.S. state. Davis 19 and James have been perhaps the most vocal black feminist voices 20 with respect to the ravages of the prison industrial complex and 21 U.S.-sponsored violence, including genocide, here and around 22 the globe. James’s work has been pioneering as well in its careful 23 attention to radical black women such as Harriet Tubman, Assata 24 Shakur, Angela Davis, and Ramona Africa. In fact, without James’s 25 work, it would be difficult to imagine the existence of black 26 women revolutionaries since African American political history 27 has privileged male figures such as Huey Newton, George Jackson, 28 Malcolm X, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, to name a few. 29 While most of the essays are not new and have appeared in 30 various publications, this Joy James reader is at its core a portrait 31 of “the making of a dissident voice,” to borrow from the title 32 of Antonia Darder’s introductory essay in the reader to which I 33 alluded earlier. What we most desperately need in a world that fears 34 and silences opposition—or worse—are revolutionaries who speak 35 truth to power and beckon us to stand with them in solidarity. A 36 luta continua. The struggle continues. 37 38 Beverly Guy-Sheftall, 39 Women’s Research and Resource Center, Spelman College 40 JJames_book_3.indbames_book_3.indb x 22/28/13/28/13 11:07:07 PMPM 1 2 3 Acknowledgments 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Assisted by researchers Maddy Dwertman and Rebecca Bradford, 11 this project was begun at the suggestion of several radical scholar- 12 activists, and benefited from the support of SUNY series editors 13 Robert Bernasconi and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and the 14 skills of editor Andrew Kenyon. Seeking the Beloved Community also 15 received support from UT-Austin’s African and African Diaspora 16 Studies, chaired by Edmund T. Gordon, and the John L. Warfield 17 Center for African and African American Studies, directed by Omi 18 Joni Jones, in both the writing of new articles and the editing and 19 revision of those previously published. 20 In 1998 and 2003, respectively, students at the University of 21 Colorado-Boulder (CU) and Brown University organized two 22 large conferences that led to a decade of anthologies on injustice 23 and incarceration.