Can I Get a Witness? Speculative Fiction as Testimony and Counterstory

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-529
Author(s):  
S. R. Toliver
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Dominant Narratives ◽  
Bear Witness

Drawing on Black feminist/womanist storytelling and the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space, this article showcases how one Black girl uses speculative fiction as testimony and counterstory, calling for readers to bear witness to her experiences and inviting witnesses to respond to the negative experiences she faces as a Black girl in the United States. I argue that situating speculative fiction as counterstory creates space for Black girls to challenge dominant narratives and create new realities. Furthermore, I argue that considering speculative fiction as testimony provides another way for readers to engage in a dialogic process with Black girls, affirming their words as legitimate sources of knowledge. Witnessing Black girls’ stories is an essential component to literacy and social justice contexts that tout a humanizing approach to research. They are also vital for dismantling a system bent on the castigation and obliteration of Black girls’ pasts, presents, and futures.

Black Girl Thought in the Work of Ntozake Shange

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Naila Keleta-Mae
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ntozake Shange ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Black Girlhood

In this article I examine the performances of black girlhood in two texts by Ntozake Shange—the choreopoem “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf” (1977) and the novel Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo (1982). The black girls whom Shange portrays navigate anti-black racism in their communities, domestic violence in their homes, and explore their connections with spirit worlds. In both these works, Shange stages black girls who make decisions based on their understanding of the spheres of influence that their race, gender, and age afford them in an anti-black patriarchal world dominated by adults. I draw, too, from Patricia Hill Collins’s work on feminist standpoint theory and black feminist thought to introduce the term black girl thought as a theoretical framework to offer insights into the complex lives of black girls who live in the post-civil rights era in the United States.

Envisioning Black Girl Futures

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aria S. Halliday
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Black Vernacular ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Fertile Ground

Black girlhood exists in a world that is constantly trying to negate it. Black vernacular traditions, too, allow girls to be considered “fast” or “womanish” based on their perceived desire or sexuality. However, Black girlhood studies presents a space where Black girls can claim their own experiences and futures. This essay engages how Nicki Minaj's “Anaconda” is fertile ground to help demystify Black girls’ possibilities for finding sexual pleasure and self-determination. Using hip-hop feminism, I argue that “Anaconda” presents a Black feminist sexual politics that encourages agency for Black girls, providing a “pinkprint” for finding pleasure in their bodies.

Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That: Anti-Black Girl Violence in the Era of #SayHerName

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treva B. Lindsey
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Many ◽  
A Site

In the era of #BlackLivesMatter, anti-Black state violence is a primary focus. From police brutality to the Flint Water Crisis, organizers within the Movement for Black Lives draw important connections between various sites of racial injustice as experienced by people of African descent in the United States. One of the many sites where anti-Black violence and victimization occurs is in our classrooms. This article explores the classroom as a site of racial–gender terror for Black girls. The classroom is far too often an anti-Black girl space.

And Who Will Revere the Black Girl

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124322110293
Author(s):  
Dominique C. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Black Feminist Theory ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Dress Code ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Black Girlhood

While the mainstream media continues to narrowly define justice and reduce the site of its presence or absence to murder scenes and court cases, justice is often foreclosed long before someone is murdered and we must #SayHerName. To expand the project of Black mattering beyond race and physical death, this essay animates how body policing through school dress code policy sanctions racial-sexual violence and provide girls with an ultimatum: either abandon body sovereignty and self-expression, or accept the consequences of being read as a distraction, a problem. (Re)membering classic Black feminist theory and the 2013 case of Vanessa Van Dyke, this essay locates these underrecognized facets of state violence as an extension of the #SayHerName project. Through a Black girlhood studies framework, the author underscores embodiment as an essential measure of justice and reframes mattering through the importance of Black girls’ crowns.

Black Girls Swim

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Samantha White
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Beauty Ideals ◽  
Sports And Physical Activity

During the early part of the twentieth century, Black girls in the United States attended Young Women’s Christian Associations (YWCAs) where they received instruction in sports and physical activity. Using archival research, in this article I examine the role of swimming in Black girls’ sports and physical activity practices in Northern YWCAs. With a focus on the construction of Black girlhood, health, and embodiment, I trace how girls navigated spatial segregation, beauty ideals, and athleticism. I highlight the experiences of Black girl swimmers—subjects who have often been rendered invisible in the historical and contemporary sporting landscape.

Opening Up Space for Global Black Girls

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-33
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Civil ◽  
Zetta Elliott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Performance Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Embodied Knowledge ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Opening Up

In this innovative dialogue, Gabrielle Civil and Zetta Elliott consider how their work inside and outside of the academy “opens up space” for Black girls in the United States and throughout the African diaspora. In her performance art and curation, Civil activates the presence and absence of diasporic Black girls and celebrates their creative potential. In her books for young readers, Elliott disrupts literary conventions by centering Black girl protagonists and using the fantasy genre not for escape but empowerment. Linking the critical and creative, this dialogue showcases reflection and embodied knowledge of Black girls and women.

Witnessing Wonderland: Research with Black girls imagining freer futures

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Morgan Young
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
The Future ◽  
Oriented Research

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to a growing body of work (re)imagining the future for Black girls by calling Western notions of time into question. At its core, this paper argues that all Black girls are imaginative beings and that it is essential that Black girlhood imagination as a mode of future-making praxis be considered an integral component in the pursuit of Black liberation. To do such the author engages Black feminist futurity Campt (2017) and Black Quantum Futurity Phillips (2015) to illuminate ways a reconceptualization of time provides us with an analytical tool to amplify Black girls’ liberatory fantasies. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted to synthesize Black girls’ freedom dreams (Kelley, 2002) across time in an effort to demonstrate that Black girls, despite their conditions, are experts in self-defining their dreams of the future. It also highlights methods that researchers use to elucidate the freedom dreams of Black girls years past. Findings This paper underscores the urgency in applying future-oriented research practices in the attempt to create a new world for Black girls. It also demonstrates that Black girls have always been and always be, imaginative beings that engaged in future-making dreaming. Research limitations/implications The author offers a conceptual framework for researchers committed to witnessing Black girl imaginations and in an effort to work in concert with Black girls to get them freer, faster. Originality/value This paper makes the argument that studying the imaginations and freedom dreams of Black girls requires the employment of future-oriented theories that have a racial, gender and age-based analysis.

scholarly journals You Do Belong! Transformative Black Women Faculty Recommendations for Broadening Participation in US P-20 Computing Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Editorial Board
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Computing Education ◽  
Graduate Degrees ◽  
Broadening Participation ◽  
Industry Experience

   This study aimed to amplify Black women faculty’s recommendations for broadening participation of the next generation of Black girls and women as they matriculate from primary school into advanced graduate degrees (P-20) in computing education (CE). As tenure-track faculty, these transformative women have attained the highest degree (i.e., Ph.D.) in postsecondary CE in the United States (US). To govern the knowledge validation process, I utilized Afrocentric feminist epistemology undergirded by critical race theory and Black feminist thought. Upon conducting thematic analysis, I identified four emergent themes to broaden participation of Black girls and women in computing: 1) improve access, quality, and early exposure to CE, 2) create equitable and equal spaces for Black girls and women, 3) confront unconscious biases of teachers and faculty, and 4) provide mentoring opportunities. As an emerging Black woman scholar, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and 15 years of industry experience, I had a “unique angle of vision” to interpret and inform this study’s findings. This study builds upon limited knowledge about interventions needed to support Black girls and women in US P-20 computing education. 

Centering “Grace”: Challenging Anti-Blackness in Schooling Through Motherwork

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 142-157
Author(s):  
Terri N. Watson ◽  
Gwendolyn S. Baxley
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Black Children ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Racial Biases ◽  
Black Girlhood ◽  
Patricia Hill Collins ◽  
Educational Advocacy

Anti-Blackness is global and present in every facet of society, including education. In this article, we examine the challenges Black girls encounter in schools throughout the United States. Guided by select research centered on Black women in their roles as mothers, activists and school leaders, we assert that sociologist Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of Motherwork should be an essential component in reframing the praxis of school leadership and in helping school leaders to rethink policies, practices, and ideologies that are anti-Black and antithetical to Blackness and Black girlhood. While most research aimed to improve the schooling experiences of Black children focuses on teacher and school leader (mis)perceptions and systemic racial biases, few studies build on the care and efficacy personified by Black women school leaders. We argue that the educational advocacy of Black women on behalf of Black children is vital to culturally responsive school leadership that combats anti-Blackness and honors Black girlhood. We conclude with implications for school leaders and those concerned with the educational experiences of Black children, namely Black girls.

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