Reclaiming Our Space
How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A treatise of Black women’s transformative influence in media and society, placing them front and center in a new chapter of mainstream resistance and political engagement
In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms. As Jones reveals, some of the best-loved devices of our shared social media language are a result of Black women’s innovations, from well-known movement-building hashtags (#BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackGirlMagic) to the now ubiquitous use of threaded tweets as a marketing and storytelling tool. For some, these online dialogues provide an introduction to the work of Black feminist icons like Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, bell hooks, and the women of the Combahee River Collective. For others, this discourse provides a platform for continuing their feminist activism and scholarship in a new, interactive way.
Complex conversations around race, class, and gender that have been happening behind the closed doors of academia for decades are now becoming part of the wider cultural vernacular—one pithy tweet at a time. With these important online conversations, not only are Black women influencing popular culture and creating sociopolitical movements; they are also galvanizing a new generation to learn and engage in Black feminist thought and theory, and inspiring change in communities around them.
Hard-hitting, intelligent, incisive, yet bursting with humor and pop-culture savvy, Reclaiming Our Space is a survey of Black feminism’s past, present, and future, and it explains why intersectional movement building will save us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Feminist activist and writer Jones thoroughly explores how black women are carving out digital niches, building community among like-minded people, and fighting back against racism and misogyny. She looks at some of the most successful hashtags of "Black Twitter," including her own #YouOKSis, which spread awareness about street harassment. Jones also interviews other influential people and activists, including CaShawn Thompson, founder of the Black Girl Magic movement, which draws attention to black women's achievements, and Glynda Carr, founder of Higher Heights for America, which supports black women in politics. She astutely analyzes the nuances of black female identity and argues it is embattled and erased on two fronts, as feminism writ large is viewed as a white woman's space, and racial politics are monopolized by men: "Where all the women are white and all the blacks are men, we are not white enough to be women and too womanly to be black." Another section uses the lens of slavery and colonization to examine the lack of positive representations of black sexuality. Jones encourages other marginalized people to speak out, using "personal branding, activism, and innovative marketing strategies" such as hashtags and evidence-presenting tweet threads to amplify their messages. Part memoir, part tactical guide to internet activism, Jones's entertaining book advises black women on how to make their voices heard and everyone else on best practices for being an ally.
