Black Feminist Thought Chapter 11 & 12 Syllabus

BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT CHAPTER 11 & 12 SYLLABUS Black Feminist Thought, Chp. 11 & 12 Syllabus Author: Morgan Holloman-Bryant Editor: Bry Reed

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Introduction...... 6 The Politics of Empowerment...... 23

Tips for readers...... 8 Glossary...... 25

Motifs...... 10 Final Thoughts/Conclusion...... 28

The Discussion...... 12 Further readings/resources...... 29

Chapter 11: Black Feminist Epistemology ...... 12 Syllabi Author Bio...... 30

Eurocentric Knowledge Validation Processes and U.S. Power Relations...... 12

Lived Experience as a Criterion of Meaning...... 13

The Use of Dialogue in Assessing Knowledge Claims...... 14

The Ethics of Caring...... 15

The Ethic of Personal Accountability...... 16

Black Women as Agents of Knowledge...... 16

Toward Truth...... 17

Chapter 12: Toward A Politics of Empowerment...... 19

Structural Domain of Power...... 19

The Disciplinary Domain of Power...... 20

5 INTRODUCTION

BOOK HISTORY: Published in 1990, Black Feminist AUTHOR HISTORY: Thought is an all-access reader that provides a

Patricia Hill Collins is a Philadelphia born sociologist comprehensive view and understanding of Black specializing in race, class, gender sexuality and the Feminist Thought and subsequently, Black Feminist intersections thereof. Born on May 1st of 1948, Practice. The text has become an essential reading for Collins attended Philadelphia public schools and Black women and remains a staple text in academic understood very early on the process of social settings around the world. Collins’ groundbreaking stratification based on the various factors of text established a new standard for those who were individual identity. Growing up during the height interested and invested in crafting and understanding of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s a theoretical framework for Black womens’ lived greatly contributed to the foundation of Collins’ experiences. Collins’ is unapologetic in her claims that academic and personal self-definition. She attended propel the book forward, one of the most notable Frederick Douglas Elementary School and during being that Black culture and many of its most treasured traditions, are rooted in the her teens years, she went to “Girls’ High”, the local oppression of Black women. Upon its release, Black Feminist Thought was regarded as Philly highschool known formally as the Philadelphia High School for Girls. After graduating the text that propelled the conversations surrounding Black feminism and conceptualizing high school, she went on to college where she earned her undergraduate degree in sociology Black women’s daily lived experiences. Black Feminist Thought synthesized a large body at Brandeis University in 1969 and her Master of Arts degree in Social Science Education from of knowledge that is especially crucial in altering the perspectives of the situations Black Harvard in 1970. She returned to Brandeis in 1984 to complete her doctorate in sociology women face on the basis of their race, gender, class and other aspects of their identity. before publishing the famous text, Black Feminist Thought just a few years later. Throughout the course of her career, Collins has also held several distinguished positions including becoming the 100th president of the American Sociological Association and being the first African-American woman to do so. Ultimately, Collins’ has devoted her life to understanding, in her own words “how African American male and female youth’s experiences with social issues of education, unemployment, popular culture and political activism articulate with global phenomena, specifically, complex social inequalities, global capitalist development, transnationalism, and political activism.”

6 7 TIPS FOR RETURNING READERS TIPS FOR FRESH READERS

1. Put the book in context: Times have changed and so have you. Before rereading think 1. You do not have to have profound thoughts right away: Everyone reads and digests at a about who you were, and where you were in life the first time you read the book. Think different pace. Take your time in understanding the text but you do not need to dissect it about who was influencing you/your thoughts. (School, friends, family, news etc.) immediately. Make a note of any points that are significant to you and move on.

2. Be critical: First reads are a time to be open-minded and give the author lead way to 2. Set aside 15-20 mins a day to read: Much like power nap — a power read — can energize understand their thoughts. Second reads you can be much more critical of the work and its your reading and help you focus. You do not need large chunks of time. Make sure you intentions. So get on your soapbox boo we got some boxes on reserve too. have no distractions during this reading time and set aside 15-20 minutes to read a day.

3. Focus on a few chapters at a time: For non-fiction (and some fiction) it’s not totally 3. Reflect on what you read: What were the themes and/or major events that had taken place necessary to reread the book chronologically from start to finish. Try focusing on themes in your selected readings? that you may have grazed over the first time around and choose a few chapters to lean into 4. Take notes: Highlight phrases, quotes etc that may immediately grab your attention at a time. 5. Build a personal glossary: If you don’t know a word, circle it, get the definition and reread the section in context. This may help you come to a new understanding of the text or discover concepts you didn’t notice before.

6. Discuss the book: Healthy discussion on what you already know can entice you to read more and that’s what the #SmartBrownGirl Book Club is here for. Join in on our discussions. Post your questions to the Facebook Group.

7. Author background: When approaching a text that you’re unfamiliar, it may be beneficial to do some quick background research on the author, as it can help provide insight on what the text may be discussing. Additionally, this can also expose you to other readings that are centered around the same theoretical concepts (1). bell hooks- A’int I a Woman”: Black Women and Feminism, (2) Kimberle Crenshaw (3) Audre Lorde etc.

8 9 the era of chattel slavery are evidence of America’s deeply embeddded commitment to OVERVIEW the oppression of Black women. Negative controlling images prompted Black women to THEMES & MOTIFS respond socially by showcasing methods of self-definition as they fashioned their own ideas about the meaning of Black womanhood. Read more about the four controlling images • Black feminism is defined as a political thought & practice created and utilized in order to Collins details (mammy, welfare mother, jezebel, etc.) in chapters one and four. (Preface,10) give understanding to the multifaceted experience of Black women in relation to their lives

at the intersection of their race, gender and class. This is particularly important as Black • Societal Stratification/Systems of Oppression: While Collins is adamant that Black women’s women’s experiences are not able to be properly contextualized solely on the basis of empowerment cannot be tied to systems of oppression, she is also clear in her analysis of race or class, but they must be considered in tandem. Collins notes that her focus on Black how these same exact systems have contributed to the status of Black women in America. Feminism and her subsequent authoring of Black Feminist Thought, is important because it Their shared and common experiences are not happenstance, but systemic in nature and was done “in order to help empower African-American women,” and “[she] knew that when have greatly impacted Black women on the basis of their race, class and gender. Collins an individual Black woman’s consciousness concerning how she understands her everyday points out the “ghettoization in domestic work” (4) that contributed to the widespread life undergoes change, she can become empowered. Such consciousness may stimulate her economic exploitation of Black women. However, in these spaces Black women have to embark on a path of personal freedom.” (Preface,10) crafted resistance circles.

• Empowerment is best defined as the power and authority given or instilled in someone that evokes a sense of willpower and accomplishment, therefore encouraging them to complete a task or achievement. In Black Feminist Thought, Collins employs empowerment as a critical part of self-actualization that will propel Black women into a position of self-reliance and therefore make them capable of creating self-definition and independence. As the primary theme of the text, Collins is adamant that empowerment for Black women must not be tied to their oppression and social injustices. Black women’s empowerment is not contingent upon the denigration of other groups as Black women are routinely “centered in one’s own experiences and engaged in coalitions with others.” (Preface,10)

• Representation & Controlling Images: Throughout the text, Collins reiterates the role of representation for Black women both in how they are perceived and how it contributes to self-perception. Popular media (26), pornographic content (136), the political sphere (235), the low-paying service job industry (nursing home assistants, day-care aides, dry-cleaning work) (46), and political representation has greatly impacted the public and personal perception of Black women. Controlling images of Black women that originated during

10 11 THE DISCUSSION • “Western or Eurocentric social and political thought contains three interrelated approaches to ascertaining “truth” that are routinely portrayed as competing epistemologies. The first, Pagination based on the Revised Tenth Anniversary Edition, Second Edition Chapters 11 & 12 Discussion (Pages 251 - 290) reflected in positivist science, has long claimed that absolute truths exist and that the task of scholarship is to develop objective, unbiased tools of science to measure these truths. Chapter 11: Black Feminist Epistemology (251-271) But many social theories have challenged the concepts and epistemology of this version Eurocentric Knowledge Validation Processes and U.S. Power Relations of science as representing the vested interests of elite White men and therefore as being less valid when applied to experiences of other groups and, more recently, to White male In this section, Collins begins by highlighting the ways in which “elite white mens’” infringement recounting of their own exploits.” (297) upon learning systems and learning processes has impacted the diffusion and retelling of Black women’s experiences by distorting their distinctive practices and knowledge. Lived Experience as a Criterion of Meaning U.S. Black Feminism anchors the most important aspects of Black womanhood for Black American women into a political ideology that caters to their specific concerns and Collins writes that there are two “types of knowing”: “—knowledge and wisdom—and taps the aspirations. As U.S. Black women navigate life on various parts of the class line while also first dimension of Black feminist epistemology. Living life as Black women requires wisdom grappling with their race and gender, other themes such as “work, family, sexual politics, because knowledge about the dynamics of intersecting oppressions has been essential to motherhood and political activism” (251) contribute to their lived experiences. This is the survival of Black women in America. African-American women give such wisdom & high complicated further when these key themes are informed by a white, male, hegemonic credence in assessing knowledge. Allusions to these two types of knowing pervade the interpretation of the world. words of a range of African-American women.” Questions To Consider: • What is meant by “Eurocentric Knowledge Validation Processes”? In what ways do these Questions To Consider: processes inform our understanding of Black feminist thought? • Why are Black women intellectuals’ contributions crucial for Black feminist thought? • What two political criteria influence knowledge validation processes? • What is the importance of lived experience in the construction of Black Feminist Thought? • What danger is presented when “elite white men ‘’ or another “overly homogeneous group” is in charge of the knowledge validation process? Takeaway Points: • “For most African-American women those individuals who have lived through the Takeaway Points: experiences about which they claim to be experts are more believable and credible than those who have merely read or thought about such experiences. Thus lived experience as a • “[Moreover] specialized thought challenging notions of Black female inferiority is unlikely criterion for credibility frequently is invoked by U.S. Black women when making knowledge to be generated from within White-male-controlled academic settings because both the claims.” (257) kinds of questions asked and the answers to them would necessarily reflect a basic lack of • African-American women’s lives remain structured at the convergence of several factors: familiarity with Black women’s realities.” (253-254)

12 13 Black community organizations reflecting principles of Africaninfluenced belief systems; The Ethics of Caring activist mothering traditions that stimulate politicized understandings of Black women’s

motherwork; and a social class system that relegates Black women as workers to the bottom Simply put, “....The ethic of caring suggests that personal expressiveness, emotions, and of the social hierarchy (259) empathy are central to the knowledge validation process” (263) This means that the role of the • In traditional African-American communities Black women find considerable institutional empathetic individual is centered and meaningful in knowledge production and dissemination. support for valuing lived experience. Black women’s centrality in families, churches, and The importance of emotional engagement via arguments and discussion is a key component of other community organizations allows us to share with younger, less experienced sisters our this ethic as well. concrete knowledge of what it takes to be self-defined Black women. (260)

Questions To Consider: The Use of Dialogue in Assessing Knowledge Claims • According to Collins, what are the three components of an ethic of caring among African- American women? How is this related to African-American culture and to women’s This section focuses on the role of dialogue and language in knowledge production and experiences? understanding. Collins surveys the use of call-and-response, African based oral traditions and • How does Collins tie an ethic of care to Black Feminist epistemology? other forms of communication to assert her claim that Black women intellectuals invoke their • How do the three interrelated components of the ethics of caring work? relationships and connectedness by way of dialogue. The role of Black women as leaders and matriarchs in families, churches and other community organizations provide them with a strong Takeaway Points: sense of support for creating a long lasting dialogue that directly contributes to Black feminist • “This theme of talking with the heart taps the ethic of caring, another dimension of an epistemology. alternative epistemology used by African-American women....the ethic of caring suggests that personal expressiveness, emotions, and empathy are central to the knowledge Questions To Consider: validation process” (263) • What is the benefit of Black women using dialogue to assess knowledge claims • The Three interrelated components of the ethic of caring (263) • How do we validate information or knowledge in our day to day lives? • One: Emphasis placed on individual uniqueness • What is the role and importance of language in constructing culture? • Two: Appropriateness of emotions in dialogues • Three: Developing the capacity for empathy Takeaway Points: • “Women tend to ground their epistemological premises in metaphors suggesting finding a voice, speaking, and listening.” (262) • Language is particularly important as Black women routinely utilize these knowledges in their knowledge production processes.

14 The Ethic of Personal Accountability Questions To Consider:

This ethic focuses on the individual and their role in developing Black feminist epistemology. • By Collins’ standards, is the determining of which Black women are able to produce Ultimately, the argument Collins makes is that knowledge claims made by individuals whom knowledge rooted in elitism and/or classism? are respected for their moral and ethical connections to their ideas will hold more value and • How do Black women as agents of knowledge impact the dissemination and reception of integrity than those offered by less respected individuals. their knowledge?

Questions To Consider: Takeaway Points: • What are the pluses and minuses of the two above positions for African American women? • “For Black women who are agents of knowledge within academia, the marginality that accompanies outsider-within status can be the source of both frustration and creativity.”

Takeaway Points: (268) • Collins argues not only that persons are responsible for their knowledge claims, but • Lorraine Hansberry expresses a similar idea: “I believe that one of the most sound ideas in also that assessments of an individual’s knowledge claims “simultaneously evaluate an dramatic writing is that in order to create the universal, you must pay very great attention to individual’s character, values, and ethics.” the specific. Universality, I think, emerges from the truthful identity of what is” (269) • This idea goes against traditional Western philosophical theory which says that a person’s argument should be evaluated on its merits independent of the person making the Toward Truth argument. As the closing section of this chapter, Collins’ wrote to analyze and examine the “taken-for- granted knowledge shared by AfricanAmerican women as a group, the more specialized Black Women as Agents of Knowledge knowledge produced by Black women intellectuals, and the social conditions shaping both types of thought. Overall, this section serves as a brief recap of the previous sections. She Black Feminist Thought, as a knowledge that is specific to the interests and concerns of Black reiterates that Black women’s unique access to the experience of being both Black and woman women, these ideas of the knowledge must be validated by Black women. To be a credible and demands that an alternative epistemology that “reflect the convergence of both sets of accepted contributer to Black feminist thought, “Black feminist intellectuals must be perssonal experiences”, is crafted and prioritized.. advocates for their material, be accountable for the consequences of their work, have lived or experienced their material in some fashion, and be willing to engage in dialogues about their Questions To Consider: findings with ordinary, everyday people.” (266) Black women dictating their own self-definition • Understand the tradition of Black Feminist Thought (266) as surveyed by Collins. facilitated the endeavor of knowledge validation processes that were controlled in part or in full • According to Collins, why do dominant groups suppress knowledge produced by any by Black women. oppressed group?

16 17 • What is meant by the idea of “deconstruction”? Chapter 12: Toward A Politics of Empowerment (273-290) • Collins argues that not only are persons responsible for their knowledge claims, but “In the United States the particular contours of each domain of power illustrates how also that the assessments of an individual’s knowledge claims “simultaneously evaluate intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation are organized in unique an individual’s character, values, and ethics.” This goes against traditional Western ways” (276) philosophical theory which says that a person’s argument should be evaluated on its merits independent of the person making the argument. What are the pluses and minuses of the Structural Domain of Power two positions for African American women? “The structural domain of power encompasses how social institutions are organized to reproduce Black women’s subordination over time.” Simply put, this concept seeks to make plain the complex ways in which social hierarchy and structure created and reproduced systems of oppression, specifically those that impact Black women. A primary feature of this domain is its focus on “large-scale, interlocking social institutions,” as an impressive array of U.S. social institutions lies at the heart of the structural domain of power.” (277) These interlocking social institutions include but are not limited to the US legal system, education system, housing industry and popular media representation.

• Historically, in the United States, the policies and procedures of the U.S. legal system, labor markets, schools, the housing industry, banking, insurance, the news media, and other social institutions as interdependent entities have worked to disadvantage African- American women. (277)

• This oppression and structural domain is made evident in several ways, with one being Black women’s long-standing structural exclusion from opportunity as they are not allowed equal chance to obtain the best jobs, attend the best schools, acquire adequate health care, and housing. This illustrates “the broad array of social policies designed to exclude Black women from full citizenship rights.” (277)

Questions To Consider: • How has the rhetoric of color-blindness helped or harmed the process of Black women’s empowerment? What are the social implications of adopting a color-blind politic?

18 19 • How does the structural domain of power hinder the transformation of US social change, but the organizations that they regulate rarely change as rapidly. (280) institutions? • The disciplinary domain of power has increased in importance with the growing significance of bureaucracy as a mode of modern social organization. Bureaucracy, in turn, has become Takeaway Points: important in controlling populations, especially across race, gender, and other markers of • “Within the structural domain of power, empowerment cannot accrue to individuals and difference. (281) groups without transforming U.S. social institutions that foster this exclusion.” The Hegemonic Domain of Power • “Because this domain is large-scale, systemwide, and has operated over a long period of time via interconnected social institutions, segregation of this magnitude cannot be The hegemonic domain of power is all about ideology, culture, and consciousness. This domain changed overnight.” of power is about justifying the practices of the prior domains mentioned in Black Feminist Thought. This domain skews the ideas of ideology and culture and operates as a link between The Disciplinary Domain of Power “social institutions (structural domain), their organizational practices (disciplinary domain), and the level of everyday social interaction (interpersonal domain).”

This domain explains the power structure where people utilize the rules of power and • The structural and disciplinary domains of power operate through systemwide social stratification within everyday life to uphold the racial hierarchy or challenge it. As noted by policies managed primarily by bureaucracies. Collins, this domain is typically organized via bureaucracies that rely heavily on surveillance practices. Takeaway Points:

• This domain justifies oppression and works alongside the interpersonal domain which Questions To Consider: influences everyday lived experience. (276) • Does this domain provide a false sense of security for those who choose to engage in a shift of the “standard” power structure? • Controlling images such as the mammy, matriarch, and jezebel are a function of this domain. Takeaway Points: • In the United States, hegemonic ideologies concerning race, class, gender, sexuality, and • Black women who capture positions of authority so that they can change the rules nation permeate nearly every aspect of Black women’s existence- so much so that it is themselves become empowered within the disciplinary domain. (276) difficult to conceptualize and envision alternatives to them, let alone ways of resisting the social practices that they justify. (284) • Ordering schools, industries, hospitals, banks, and realtors to stop discriminating against Black women does not mean that these and other social institutions will comply. Laws may

20 21 Interpersonal Domain of Power The Politics of Empowerment

Collins believes that the idea of intersecting identities has placed Black women in a position Understanding Black Feminism as a social justice practice involves understanding the politics of victimization. This particular domain influences the “everyday lived experience and the of empowerment. Considering how the matrix of domination is structured and how it operates individual consciousness that ensues.” The interpersonal domain works in tandem with the other assists us in understanding how African-American women empowerment involves actively forms and functions through “routinized, day-to-day practices of how people treat one another”. rejecting aspects of knowledge that perpetuate subjugation and objectification. Moreover, Black These practices and actions are systemic in nature and occur regularly and are so familiar that American become empowered when we are fully able to understand and contextualize the most they often go unnoticed. complicated aspects of our identities. • Dr. Collins describes it as “discriminatory practices of everyday lived experience that because they are so routine typically go unnoticed or remain unidentified. Strategies of Questions To Consider: everyday racism and everyday resistance occur in this domain. (299) • What thoughts and ideas are offered as important contributions concerning the significance of knowledge for a politics of empowerment? • Is it possible or (intellectually) responsible to develop a politics of empowerment without Questions To Consider: understanding how power is organized and operates? • How does the Interpersonal domain of power operate alongside the other domains? • Understand the structural domain of power and how it “encompasses that social institutions • Considering that this domain stresses the “everyday” occurrences, what other forms can are organizations meant to reproduce Black women’s subordination over time.” “resistance strategies” take aside from those mentioned? • How has the “disciplinary domain of power” operated in the continued subordination of Black women and girls? Takeaway Points: • What is the role of bureaucracy in maintaining or dismantling the disciplinary domain of power? • “Individual biographies are situated within all domains of power and reflect their interconnections and contradictions. Whereas the structural domain of power organizes the Takeaway Points: macro-level of social organization with the disciplinary domain managing its operations, the interpersonal domain functions through routinized, day-to-day practices of how people • Black feminist politics of empowerment requires one to specify the domains of power that treat one another (e.g., microlevel of social organization).” (287) constrain Black women, as well as how such domination can be resisted. (19)

• When Black women value and prioritize self-definition, “participate in Black women’s domestic and transnational activist traditions, view the skills gained in schools as part of a focused education for Black community development, and invoke Black feminist epistemologies as central to our worldviews,” they empower themselves. (289)

22 23 • “Black women’s empowerment involves revitalizing U.S. Black feminism as a social justice project organized around the dual goals of empowering AfricanAmerican women and GLOSSARY fostering social justice in a transnational context.” (290) • Outsider-Within: a person who has a “particular knowledge/power relationship, one of gaining knowledge about or if a dominant group without gaining full power accorded to members of that group.” The person is deemed an outsider by nature of their gender and/or ethnicity, or other factors that relegate them to the margins of society. (12-13) o outsider-within locations: social locations or border spaces marking the boundaries between groups of unequal power. Individuals acquire identities as “outsiders within” by their placement in these social locations. (300)

• Intellectual Activism: the pursuit of higher education as a form of liberation and culturally responsive activism (3)

• Epistemology: a theory of knowledge typically including methods, validity and scopes of study. Epistemology assists in distinguishing belief and opinion.; standards used to assess knowledge or why we believe what we believe to be true (298) o “Epistemology constitutes an overarching theory of knowledge (Harding 1987). It investigates the standards used to assess knowledge or why we believe what we believe to be true. Far from being the apolitical study of truth, epistemology points to the ways in which power relations shape who is believed and why. (252) o Black Feminist Epistemology: A specialized knowledge that focuses on U.S. Black feminist thought as particular and unique study that reflects the distinctive themes of African-American women’s experiences.

• Matrix of Domination: an intellectual model used to approach and analyze Black women’s experiences as they are nuanced by race, gender, social class and sexuality. The matrix details the interconnected relationship of key identity pillars and the intersectional paradigms remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type as they work together in producing injustices. o “the overall organization of hierarchical power relations for any society. Any

24 25 specific matrix of domination has (1) a particular arrangement of intersecting systems race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation as forms of oppression that work together in of oppression, e.g., race, social class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, ethnicity distinctive ways to produce a distinctive U.S. matrix of domination.” (276) and age; and (2) a particular organization of its domains of power, e.g., structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal.” (300) • Self-Definition: the power to name one’s own reality (300) o “The term matrix of domination describes this overall social organization within • Eurocentric Knowledge Validation Processes: methods of validating knowledge that are which intersecting oppressions originate, develop, and are contained. In the United rooted in the idea that eurocentric ideals and histories are superior and that subsequently, the States, such domination has occurred through schools, housing, employment, histories of empires, slavery and the slave trade are to be suppressed. government, and other social institutions that regulate the actual patterns of intersecting oppressions that Black women encounter.” (228) • Ethics of Caring: a set of beliefs that support community infrastructures. o According to Collins, while her theory of the Matrix of Domination and • Politics of Empowerment: a politic aimed at uplifting and reimagining African American Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of Intersectionality are vastly similar, they differ in that women/womanhood, created specifically within a context that is separate from oppression and “Intersectionality refers to particular forms of intersecting oppressions, for example, social injustice. intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nation. Intersectional paradigms remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that • Hegemonic Domain of Power: a form or mode of social organization that uses ideas and oppressions work together in producing injustice. In contrast, the matrix of domination ideology to absorb and thereby depoliticize oppressed groups’ dissent. Alternatively, the refers to how these intersecting oppressions are actually organized. Regardless of the diffusion of power throughout the social system where multiple groups police one another and particular intersections involved, structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal suppress one another’s dissent. (300) domains of power reappear across quite different forms of oppression.” (18) • Structural Domain of Power: a constellation of organized practices in employment, o “U.S. Black women encounter a distinctive set of social practices that accompany government, education, law, business, and housing that work to maintain an unequal and our particular history within a unique matrix of domination characterized by unjust distribution of social resources. Unlike bias and prejudice, which are characteristics of intersecting oppressions. Race is far from being the only significant marker of group individuals, the structural domain of power operates through the laws and policies of social difference—class, gender, sexuality, religion, and citizenship status all matter greatly institutions. (300) in the United States. Yet for African-American women, the effects of institutionalized racism remain visible and palpable. (23) o “African-American women’s experiences as a lens, this volume has examined

26 27 Final Thoughts/Conclusion FURTHER READINGS/RESOURCES • What were your preliminary thoughts before reading this text? How did you anticipate this Books text would go? The Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

• How has the text helped you to better understand the inception of black feminism? If possible, how do you think you’ll apply these concepts to your own developing research Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice by Patricia Hill Collins and/or everyday life? • Chapter 3: On Race, Gender and Science: Black Women As Objects & Agents of Sociological Knowledge • If any, what are some critiques/suggestions you would offer to the author about this text? • Chapter 4: What’s Going On? Black Feminist Thought and the Politics of Postmoderism What are points of contention/disagreement for you? • Chapter 6: Some Groups Matter: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought

Black Sexual Politics: African American, Gender and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins • Chapter 4: Get Your Freak On: Sex, Babies & Images of Black Femininity • Chapter 6: Redefining Black Gender Ideology • Chapter 8: No Storybook Romance: How Race & Gender Matter

Articles The Matrix of Domination and the Four Domains of Power

Videos • “Race, Gender, Inequality and Intersectionality” by Kimberlé Crenshaw • Black Feminism, Intersectionality and Democratic Possibilities by Dr. Patricia Hill Collins • Black Feminism and Anti-Black Racism: Challenges and New Directions by Dr. Patricia Hill Collins • Critical Conversations: Intersectionality and Sociology by Dr. Professor Patricia Hill Collins

28 29 Syllabi Author Bio

Morgan Holloman-Bryant is a scholar, writer, and educator from Little Rock, Arkansas. She earned a degree in African/African-American Studies with a concentration in Black girlhood studies from Washington University in St. Louis. She’s an avid researcher, writer and cultural commentator with interests that focus primarily on the intersection of pop culture, race and history. She’s also a full-time mom and part-time blogger preparing to begin her joint J.D./ M.A. in Africana studies. She is also a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @themorganjael and on her history & culture blog, www. blackpowerprincess.com.