black-feminist-though-by-patricia-hill-collins

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES OF BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT33which confine “black feminist criticism to black women critics of black womenartists depicting black women” (Carby 1987, 9) are inadequate because they areinherently separatist. Instead, the connections here aim for autonomy. Given thisneed for self-definition and autonomy—an important objective of “an intellectualtradition which until twenty-five years ago did not exist within the academy”(Omolade 1994, ix)—what is the significance of Black women intellectualswithin Black feminist thought?Dialogical Practices and Black Women IntellectualsA fourth distinguishing feature of Black feminist thought concerns the essentialcontributions of African-American women intellectuals. The existence ofa Black women’s standpoint does not mean that African-American women, academicor otherwise, appreciate its content, see its significance, or recognizeits potential as a catalyst for social change. One key task for Black womenintellectuals of diverse ages, social classes, educational backgrounds, and occupationsconsists of asking the right questions and investigating all dimensions ofa Black women’s standpoint with and for African-American women. Historically,Black women intellectuals stood in a special relationship to the larger communityof African-American women, a relationship that framed Black feministthought’s contours as critical social theory.Whether this relationship will persistdepends, ironically, on Black women intellectuals’ ability to analyze their ownsocial locations.Very different kinds of “thought” and “theories” emerge when abstractthought is joined with pragmatic action. Denied positions as scholars and writerswhich allow us to emphasize purely theoretical concerns, the work of mostBlack women intellectuals has been influenced by the merger of action and theory.The activities of nineteenth-century educated Black women intellectuals suchas Anna J. Cooper, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and MaryChurch Terrell exemplify this tradition of merging intellectual work and activism.These women both analyzed the intersecting oppressions that circumscribedBlack women’s lives and worked for social justice.The Black women’s club movementthey created was both an activist and an intellectual endeavor.Working-classBlack women also engaged in a parallel joining of ideas and activism. But becausethey were denied formal educations, the form of their activism as well as the contentof the ideas they developed differed from those of middle-class Blackwomen.The live performances of classic Black women blues singers in the 1920scan be seen as one important arena where working-class women gathered andshared ideas especially germane to them (Davis 1998).Many contemporary Black women intellectuals continue to draw on this traditionof using everyday actions and experiences in our theoretical work. Blackfeminist historian Elsa Barkley Brown describes the importance her mother’s