Black Women in Politics

Description

This book explores how Diasporic Black women engage in politics, highlighting three dimensions—citizenship, power, and justice—that are foundational to intersectionality theory and politics as developed by Black women and other women of color. By extending beyond particular time periods, locations, and singular definitions of politics, Black Women in Politics sets itself apart in the field of women's and gender studies in three ways: by focusing on contemporary Black politics not only in the United States, but also the African Diaspora; by showcasing politics along a broad trajectory, including social movements, formal politics, public policy, media studies, and epistemology; and by including a multidisciplinary range of scholars, with a strong concentration of work by political scientists, a group whose work is often excluded or limited in edited collections. The final result expands our repertoire of methodological tools and concepts for discussing and assessing Black women's lives, the conditions under which they live, their labor, and the politics they enact to improve their circumstances.
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments

Black Women’s Political Labor: An Introduction
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery and Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd

Part I: Black Feminists Doing Intersectionality Work

1. Why Political Scientists Don’t Study Black Women, but Historians and Sociologists Do: On Intersectionality and the Remapping of the Study of Black Political Women
Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd

2. “I Ain’t Your Darn Help”: Black Women as the Help in Intersectionality Research in Political Science
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery

Part II: Black Feminist Policy Analysis

3. The Politics of Black Women’s Health in the UK: Intersections of “Race,” Class, and Gender in Policy, Practice, and Research
Jenny Douglas

4. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women Felons Reentering Society
Keesha M. Middlemass

5. Lost Tribes: An Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis of How US HIV/AIDS Policy Fails to “Rescue” Black Orphans
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery

Part III: Diasporic Black Women and the Global Political Arena

6. El pan, el poder y la politica: The Politics of Bread Making in Honduras’s Garifuna Community
K. Melchor Quick Hall

7. Woman Out of Place: Portia Simpson-Miller and Middle-Class Politics in Jamaica
Maziki Thame

8. “We Want to Set the World on Fire”: Black Nationalist Women and Diasporic Politics in the New Negro World, 1940–1944
Keisha N. Blain

Part IV: Discourses, Movements, and Representation

9. Morrisonian Democracy: The Literary Praxis of Black Feminist Political Engagement
Judylyn S. Ryan

10. Illegitimate Appetites: Michelle Obama’s Anti-Obesity Campaign as Sexual Regulation
Grace E. Howard

11. “We Always Resist: Trust Black Women”: Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Activism in the Wake of Health Care Reform
Tonya M. Williams

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• National
• Central
• Ethnic studies

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 10 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438470955
• Langue: English

Extrait

Black Women in Politics
SUNY series in New Political Science

Bradley J. Macdonald, editor
SUNY series in African American Studies

John R. Howard and Robert C. Smith, editors
Black Women in Politics
Demanding Citizenship, Challenging Power, and Seeking Justice
Edited by
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery and Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jordan-Zachery, Julia Sheron, editor. | Alexander-Floyd, Nikol G. (Nikol Gertrude), editor.
Title: Black women in politics : demanding citizenship, challenging power, and seeking justice / edited by Julia S. Jordan-Zachery and Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2018. | Series: SUNY series in new political science | Series: SUNY series in African American studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017045875 | ISBN 9781438470931 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470955 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women, Black—Political activity—Cross-cultural studies. | Women, Black—Social conditions—Cross-cultural studies. | Feminism—Cross-cultural studies.
Classification: LCC HQ1236 .B527 2018 | DDC 305.48/896073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045875
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
I dedicate this work to my grandmothers who ploughed tirelessly to make sure that their daughters would not have to be “mules of the earth.”
—Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
I dedicate this work to Melanie “Njeri” Jackson, Linda Williams, and Jewel Limar Prestage, Black women who labored tirelessly for progressive political change, and to raise up generations of scholars who would fight for social justice.
—Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
Black Women’s Political Labor: An Introduction
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery and Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd
Section I: Black Feminists Doing Intersectionality Work
1. Why Political Scientists Don’t Study Black Women, but Historians and Sociologists Do: On Intersectionality and the Remapping of the Study of Black Political Women
Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd
2. “I Ain’t Your Darn Help”: Black Women as the Help in Intersectionality Research in Political Science
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
Section II: Black Feminist Policy Analysis
3. The Politics of Black Women’s Health in the UK: Intersections of “Race,” Class, and Gender in Policy, Practice, and Research
Jenny Douglas
4. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women Felons Reentering Society
Keesha M. Middlemass
5. Lost Tribes: An Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis of How US HIV/AIDS Policy Fails to “Rescue” Black Orphans
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
Section III: Diasporic Black Women and the Global Political Arena
6. El pan, el poder y la política: The Politics of Bread Making in Honduras’s Garifuna Community
K. Melchor Quick Hall
7. Woman Out of Place: Portia Simpson-Miller and Middle-Class Politics in Jamaica
Maziki Thame
8. “We Want to Set the World on Fire”: Black Nationalist Women and Diasporic Politics in the New Negro World , 1940–1944
Keisha N. Blain
Section IV: Discourses, Movements, and Representation
9. Morrisonian Democracy: The Literary Praxis of Black Feminist Political Engagement
Judylyn S. Ryan
10. Illegitimate Appetites: Michelle Obama’s Anti-Obesity Campaign as Sexual Regulation
Grace E. Howard
11. “We Always Resist: Trust Black Women”: Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Activism in the Wake of Health Care Reform
Tonya M. Williams
Contributors
Index
Figures and Tables
Figure
2.1 Black Women as Research Subjects in Political Science, 1996–2010
Tables
1.1 Search Totals for Full-Length Articles (FLAs) by Titles and Abstracts, 1970–1985
1.2 Search Totals for Full Length Articles (FLAs) by Titles and Abstracts, 1986–2003
1.3 Search Totals for Full Length Articles (FLAs) by Titles and Abstracts, 2004–2008
4.1 Participants
11.1 Reproductive Justice Organizations’ Constituents and Issue Niches (N=4)
11.2 Political Activities of Reproductive Justice Organizations before Enactment of the ACA (N=4)
11.3 Political Activities of Reproductive Justice Organizations after Enactment of the ACA (N=4)
Acknowledgments
The following chapters, “ Why Political Scientists Don’t Study Black Women, But Historians and Sociologists Do: On Intersectionality and the Remapping of the Study of Black Political Women ,” which has been slightly revised for this volume, and ‘“I Ain’t Your Darn Help’: Black Women as the Help in Intersectionality Research in Political Science,” were previously published in the National Political Science Review (2014). “Black Women’s Political Labor: An Introduction” incorporates some material from the “Guest Editors’ Note” in the same aforementioned volume.
In “ Black Women’s Political Labor: An Introduction ,” Julia contributed the framing, specifically regarding the use of Zora Neal Hurston’s work, and wrote the discussion of contributors’ work in connection to the larger project; and Nikol wrote the section on intersectionality for the introduction. Julia wrote the introductory essays accompanying each section. Both authors coedited the volume.
We would like to thank our editor at SUNY Press, Michael Rinella, for his support of this work, as well as several anonymous reviewers whose responses strengthened the volume. We thank Judylyn Ryan, as well, for her important feedback on the introduction and book title. We would also like to thank Monica Simal and Viviane Saleh-Hanna for their thoughtful insights, which helped to frame the introduction; and Edmicelly Xavier (Julia’s research assistant) for her work in helping to edit the volume. Thanks also to Laura Gillman for her contribution of sources for the introduction and to Tyson King-Meadows for a Julia R. Hight Summer Writing Fellowship that provided valuable time (for Nikol) to work on this project. Finally, we thank all of the contributors whose work is included here and for their efforts to advance social justice for Black women and communities throughout the Diaspora.
Black Women’s Political Labor
An Introduction
JULIA S. JORDAN-ZACHERY
NIKOL G. ALEXANDER-FLOYD
Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God , widely lauded as a foundational Black feminist text, speaks to Black women’s self-definition and self-actualization in the face of the interlocking and multiple forms of oppressions they confront in their daily lives. The novel foregrounds a number of recurring symbols and motifs that communicate this larger theme of Black women’s self-actualization, including, for instance, the protagonist Janie Crawford’s hair, which serves as a symbol and site of bodily and community control, and the mule. At the beginning of the novel, Nanny, Janie’s grandmother, expounds on the complexity of race-gender politics that (some) Black women encounter. In her counsel to her granddaughter, Nanny states:
Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. (Hurston 1990, 14)
In this conversation with young Janie, Nanny offers a nuanced but incomplete understanding of Black women’s often perceived role in race-gender, social, economic, and political hierarchies. Specifically, Nanny speaks to the ways in which Black women’s labor is often used in the service of others. Furthermore, she speaks to a form of mistreatment and betrayal of the mule, and thus through this metaphor she speaks to how Black women are represented and treated by those both within and outside their racial group. This appropriative labor extends to emotional labor, a theme powerfully examined by Audre Lorde (2007) in her analysis of the use of Black women’s emotional labor. In a similar vein, bell hooks (1995) suggests that even Black women’s anger is pressed into service of the liberation of others and not themselves.
Despite its accuracy in capturing the appropriation of Black women’s labor, Nanny’s analysis is only partially complete, a fact that Janie recognizes at the end of her own epic journey. Whatever external exigencies constrain or coerce Black women’s labor, it is evident that internal psychological, ethical, and economic commitm