Will African American women like Kizzmekia Corbett—lead scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases working on a vaccine for the virus— be able to follow in the trajectories of black women healers, like Marie Laveau, Harriet Tubman or the “signares” in West Africa?
Tag: Black Feminist in Public Series
Farah Jasmine Griffin on the Legacy of Black Feminism—and the Black, Feminist Future
“I think the future of black feminism will either help to change the world or how we deal with the end of the world as we know it. And maybe these two things aren’t antithetical.”
Black Feminist in Public: Veronica Chambers on the Power and Meaning of Beyoncé
“I think people who dismiss her as somehow being a lightweight or a pretty girl with some lucky breaks—as if you can create at that level without thinking critically!—that is actually just another sign of misogyny and how women are discounted for what they create. When we make exquisite things, people assume there are fairies in the night who do it with magic dust instead of looking at the work and the research and the effort that goes into it.”
Black Feminist in Public: Celebrating Tricia Rose’s Milestone Year
Rose’s classic study, Black Noise: Rap Music and and Black Culture in Contemporary America, turned 25 this year—and was also named one of the top books of the 20th century by Black Issues in Higher Education. To mark the occasion, the American Studies Association featured a panel celebrating Rose and Black Noise featuring hip-hop and black cultural scholars. Rose sat down for an interview with Ms. to talk about hip-hop, feminism and the state of popular culture.
Inside Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s Black, Feminist Biography of Harriet Tubman
“She came to slay slavery. She came to remove her friends and family from the most violent system in the United States. She came, and she did it, armed and ready.”
Tanisha C. Ford’s Black Feminist Love Letter to Fashion
“We need to understand that style and adornment have always been central to a feminist project and how feminists have defined themselves or pushed back against normative readings of the body.”
“The Lemonade Reader” Adds Beyoncé to the Black Feminist Canon
Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin’s new collection adds to a growing list of works that comprise “Beyoncé Studies.”
Why Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Fuses Physics with Black Feminism
“I think that black scientists are thought of as mythological Afrofuturist beings. And it may be that we’re Afrofuturists, but we’re not mythological.”
Black Feminist in Public: How Rabi Musah Uses Chemistry to Advance Social Justice
“How do I take science and by solving a problem in science, address a problem that disproportionately affects women all over planet Earth? That’s my feminist agenda.”
Black Feminist in Public: Kasi Lemmons on Telling Harriet Tubman’s Freedom Story
“Harriet Tubman’s story is not about slavery. It’s about escaping from slavery. It’s about freedom.”