Black Feminism, Intersectionality, and Democratic Possibilities

Introduction by Bess Vincent

• Bess Vincent welcomes everyone and acknowledges International Women's Day.

• Practical notes for students needing attendance certificates and faculty needing equity and inclusion certificates are mentioned; these are available at the theater doors.

• Attendees are encouraged to use social media (Snapchat, Twitter) with a specific hashtag to engage the broader community.

• A Q&A session will follow the presentation with mikes available.

• Refreshments and book sales with signing opportunities will be available in the lobby post-talk.

• Thanks are extended to the Education and Social Sciences area, Dean Darrin Campen, the Women in Gender Studies program, the Takoma Park Student Life Office, Siobhan Quinn, Chris Campanella, and the Cultural Art Center staff.

• Patricia Hill Collins is introduced as a social theorist whose work spans race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation.

• Collins' notable works are highlighted, including "Black Feminist Thought," "Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology," and "Black Sexual Politics."

• Her accolades include being the first African-American woman President of the American Sociological Association in 2008.

• The timeliness of Collins' talk, "Black Feminism, Intersectionality, and Democratic Possibilities," is emphasized given current political and social events like the Women's March and the Day Without a Woman Strike.

• Vincent notes Collins' lesson that there is no singular woman's experience, as experiences are shaped by power relations across gender, race, nationality, class, sexuality, and legal status.

• Montgomery College's diverse community is recognized as a fitting audience for Collins' message.

Patricia Hill Collins' Opening Remarks

• Collins expresses enthusiasm for the audience and encourages use of the provided hashtag for questions and comments.

• She acknowledges a difficult recent period and references her book, "Another Kind of Public Education," which explores democratic possibilities.

• The talk will address how black feminism and intersectionality shape the imagination regarding democratic possibilities.

What Does the Flag Mean To You?

• Collins shares an experience from her senior year of high school when she was asked to deliver a Flag Day speech at Independence Hall.

• She reflects on her difficulty writing the speech due to her awareness of the contradictions between the American ideals and the lived experiences of her working-class African-American family.

• Her father, a World War II veteran, faced racial discrimination despite his service.

• Her mother's dreams of becoming an English teacher were deferred, facing limited career advancement at the Department of Defense.

• Collins questioned the American ideal of meritocracy, observing the struggles of her parents and others to improve their lives.

• She wrote a speech that expressed her true feelings while committing to the democratic ideals, but her English teacher heavily edited the speech to remove her ambivalence about the meaning of the flag and democracy, changing it into an uncritical celebration of American patriotism.

• Collins says that ever since that experience she has tried to reclaim her voice and give the speeches that she wants to give.

Black Feminism and Democratic Ideals

• Collins identifies as a black woman and discusses how this identity has shaped her commitment to democratic ideals.

• She notes that the black women she knew were committed to democratic ideals, their children, and their communities.

• She discusses how she set out to study black women's intellectual work and voices that have not been allowed to express in certain settings.

• Collins will discuss Black Feminism and Intersectionality to highlight how black feminism relates to the current moment, opening a space for conversation.

Black Women's Intellectual Activism

• Focus on two key ideas from black feminism: intersectionality and flexible solidarity.

• Overview of Black Feminism: Collins notes various resources are available for history and overviews on the topic.

Ida Wells Barnett

• Ida Wells Barnett was an antilynching advocate working in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

• She became an activist after friends were lynched in Memphis, Tennessee and she was threatened for writing about it as a journalist.

• Her work drew upon information printed in southern papers, presenting undeniable proof of lynching, to analyze the patterns of lynching.

• She developed arguments about race, gender, sexuality, and class, challenging prevailing narratives that justified lynching by claiming black men were animalistic and lusting after white women.

• Wells Barnett presented arguments on the sexuality of white men lusting after black women that was unheard of at the time.

• She went on the public speaking trail, found allies in Europe, and spoke about the problem of lynching.

• Ida Wells Barnett believed in women's suffrage and faced segregation while many white women in the movement didn't want her to be a part of the movement.

Angela Y. Davis

• Contemporary African-American intellectual and activist.

• Davis's work focuses on state violence, drawing attention to issues such as prison abolition and routinized violence in the state.

• Her book, "Women, Race, and Class," is highlighted as an early contribution to the analysis of intersectionality.

• Concerned with state violence after experiencing it herself by being on the FBI Most Wanted List.

• She speaks to the current routinized police state.

• Also chose writing and intellectual work as her terrain of action.

June Jordan and Indivisible Freedom

• June Jordan, a poet and essayist, observed divisions between communities at an antiracism rally and an LGBTQ+ rally.

• Jordan's quote emphasizes that freedom is indivisible:

Intersectionality

• Collins co-authored a book with Serma Bilsh on intersectionality. Core ideas include:

  • Examining how social inequalities are organized, endure, change, and are resisted.

  • Investigating how race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, religion, and citizenship constitute intersecting systems of power that mutually construct one another.

  • Articulating with broader political and intellectual struggles for social justice, emphasizing the ethical component of the work.

Flexible Solidarity

• Flexible solidarity differs from groupthink and recognizes that black women, especially intellectual women, are aware that there are gendered differences around racism, class and money, but might not be in a position to do as much about that as they would like because of the danger of it.

• It is when you're facing the enemy that will kill one of you or kill the next one of you that makes sense to band together.

• Internal conflicts or differences within a community are addressed when politically reasonable, recognizing the need for unity against external threats.

• Flexible solidarity positions black women for coalition building with other social justice projects.

Black Lives Matter

• Overview: Founded in 2012, gaining prominence after George Zimmerman's acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013.

• It broke the fiction that you couldn't talk about the black community.

• Black Lives Matter and Intersectionality is a key factor for the movement.

• Mission Statement: Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of black, queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black undocumented folks, folks with records, women, and all black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within black liberation movements.

• Constructs a political blackness across social divisions in black communities around ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, immigrant status, religion, and ability.

Intersectional Solidarities and Democratic Possibilities

• Exploration of how ideas around intersectionality and flexible solidarity can inform and shape democratic possibilities.

Three Sites of Intersectional Solidarities

• Within black communities.

• Among people of color.

• With white allies. Highlights challenges in coalition building and the importance of solidarity.

Solidarities Within Black Communities: Religion and Sexuality

• Documentary Highlight: "The New Black" by Yoruba Richen, on the marriage equality fight in Maryland.

• The documentary shows how black LGBT folk who were trying to get marriage equality did not give up on black people who didn't know or didn't like the movement.

• The possibilities of political blackness, where solidarity is constructed and made, and minds were clarified, are represented.

Grace Boggs and Political Blackness

• Grace Boggs is represented to show the political blackness.

• Boggs was Chinese-American, fell in love and married, and did more for black people in Detroit than imagined.

• She is considered a black person politically, highlighting other ways of having political solidarity that are not around being worried about identities, communities came from, and communities joined.

Solidarities Among People of Color

• Exploration of building political solidarity among different groups of color.

• Collins states that Anti-black racism is a touchstone for many of the intersecting oppressions that other groups encounter, arguing that multiple stories are interconnected and intertwined.
  *Refers to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton to show how it is not just multiracial casting of the same story, it wrote a hip-hop opera about the founding myth of America taking on democracy in terms of the cherished myths.

• Coalitions among groups can be convenience based, strategic ways to reach an end, or conscience based, around lifelong support and passion. The disappointment is when people think someone is fighting on the basis of conscience, the end is just based on convenience.

Black-Brown Solidarity / Coalitions Among People of Color

• Racial politics being highlighted in the new gulf south.

• Collins is tired of the story where blacks and latinos don't have anything in common, and would rather look at what are the points of overlap and what are the points of difference.

Solidarities With White Allies

• Challenges and nuances of white allies.

• Whites must deal with their own whiteness by decentering and redefining whiteness and redefining white supremacy.

• Calls for white allies to actively reject white supremacy.

• Points to white feminists who have taken great grief but still moved towards intersectionality.

• Potential visible intersectional solidarities through coalition building in support of women's issues in this moment.

Final Thoughts

• Collins reflects on the lessons from the Flag Day speech dilemma and connects it to Frederick Douglass's speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

• Collins recounts her decision not to give the speech, as it conflicted with her values and beliefs.

• She emphasizes the importance of speaking truth to power, even in the face of contradictions.

• Collins is happy to be able to give the talk she wanted to give today.