The New Self-Help
If You’re Serious About Anti-Racism, Listen to Black Women
You’ll better understand the complexity of oppression, and what we can do to challenge it
This story is part of The New Self-Help: 21 Books for a Better You in the 21st Century.
Sometimes people assume that outspoken Black women — perhaps especially outspoken Black women professors — came out of the womb wearing a “Black Girl Magic” T-shirt and quoting Angela Davis. But the truth is that like most people in this country, I was not socialized to take Black women’s knowledge seriously — which of course means that I was not socialized to take my own knowledge seriously.
Many Black women have had to struggle against the intertwined forces of patriarchy, racism, and class oppression that keep us silenced, ignored, and marginalized. So, yes, even as a Black woman, it took me several decades to begin to understand that Black women and girls have been uniquely and violently oppressed in our White male supremacist society — and that listening to Black women is key to challenging multiple forms of oppression.
