I started reading when chicken heads come home to roost by Joan morgan. Instantly fell into the forward by Britney Cooper who I am most familiar with from Eloquent rage. Both of whom seem to share a view of feminism that feel much more expansive than the. Tranditional napkin flavored nonsense that exhaults white men as the standard of achievement. These black women were much more ‘my people” and yet still...not quite.
Joan, who had earned her props, as a real hip hop-head or legend, refers to an entirely different industry and culture in her 1999 examination of the genre than I do with 2024 eyes and ears. Yes it’s still rife with misogynoir, capitalism, and trauma. But unlike her perspective of video hoes being low-self esteem women seeking male attention, I can also hold that this may not be the case. Women are no less sexual than men, and not just for the male gaze. In their own comforts women unabused by patriarchy’s self-hatred prioritize, record, watch and share their pleasure.
I, who came to sexual maturity in the age that “exposed” Supahead, can hold that there are some among us who crave the experience of being the best fellater a partner has ever encountered. How is that any different than my own subjective ambitions to talk to an online audience of thousands who actually give a fuck about what I have to say.
Should I feel differently about our individual pursuits because my currency is words, where her’s requires more throat than tongue, I assume don’t quote me on this. There is no difference. We are all in pursuit of our own bliss. Our individual claims to personal satisfaction. So, while I pain at the Diddy revelations, and R. Kelly accusations, I will not include every female in the presence of a performer, living in her sexuality, a victim.
Other aspects of Joan’s missing perspective lies in the truth that we have acquired about society since the inception of this text. That black-on-black crime narrative has long been abandoned for one that rightfully attributes the unnatural condition of a bucket to a colony of crabs.
Single-motherhood is much less to blame for the condition of our families than the economic and systemic oppression that is enacted onto ghettoes. Yes, men of great economic power continue to think that procreating across their choice of homes is their right. But the fitness of that behavior must be judged in accordance with the society that they are part of. For in a communal environment, such actions would have less impact than in this system of American Imperialsim. Perhaps the solution is community rather than commandment. Can we see beyond the action and address the behavior. Can we create the environments where those families can be healthy rather than penalize the parents for what they choose to do.
Thats my idea of feminism. TO me, I’m as feminine as the urge to create from nothingness, that which exhaults the experience of humanness. Thats feminine as fuck.
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