“. . . it is the ongoing conception that Black feminism is the exclusive territory of black women that traps and limits Black feminists and Black wome“. . . it is the ongoing conception that Black feminism is the exclusive territory of black women that traps and limits Black feminists and Black women academics who continue to be conscripted into performing and embodying their intellectual investments.”
A dissertation on intersectional* Black feminism, its history, its structure, and its struggles, from Duke University Professor Jennifer Nash.
Straight Outta’ Academia
Although she most often refers to intersectionalism as an analytic Dr. Nash also references it as an act, an argument, an analysis, a theory, a category, a concept, a constraint, a descriptor, a discipline, a foundation, a framework, an identity, an instrument, an intervention, a point of entry, a practice, a system, a tool, a tradition, and a “territory under siege” (just to name a few). To call this an intense study in Black feminism would be an understatement. Sit down, saddle up, and be prepared to take notes. ______________________________
*”Intersectionality is a term first coined in 1989 by American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination.” -Research Guide, First Year Studies, Syracuse University...more
“It's no coincidence that so many cults align themselves with mainstream religions. Like a predatory animal that has evolved to resemble something com“It's no coincidence that so many cults align themselves with mainstream religions. Like a predatory animal that has evolved to resemble something commonplace and nonthreatening, these organizations understand that the more they appear to be a branch of a familiar institution, the more easily they'll be able lure new followers into the fold.” -Sara Coughlin, 2018
Flora Jessop was born and raised in the polygamous hell-hole of Colorado City Arizona. Her father and his many wives were fundamentalist Mormons (FLDS). While still a child Flora was repeatedly sexually abused by her father. As a teenager she made several attempts to escape Colorado City, eventually succeeding. She now works as an advocate for the protection of abused children and as an activist helping both children and adults to extricate themselves from religious tyranny and abuse.
Trigger Warning
This is a hard read. The descriptions of the abuse Flora endured are nauseatingly graphic, so much so that I almost put this down and walked away. Consequently, you’ll find this title on many DNF lists. Unless you’re devoid of empathy the accounts of what happens to the children in FLDS will very likely turn your stomach as well as break your heart.
it gets worse…
Monsters are still out there. The FLDS may have a prophet or two in prison (see Warren Jeffs) but their pestilential presence is still alive and well. According to Al Jazeera America the adherents number around 10,000 in the United States and Canada (2015), a high percentage of those are young adults and children.
horrors ad infinitum
I am not sure where to draw the line between religion and cult. Is one better than the other? Religions tend to be larger, making their crimes against children less conspicuous, but does that necessarily make them less culpable? Less evil? For every bad actor in FLDS there are, for example, a hundred spread throughout the various Catholic dioceses. Churches have been and will continue to be a mecca for pedophiles and degenerates because of the access they provide to women and children. The FLDS is a beast, but it is one of many....more
There is so much more to Harriet Tubman than her heroic escapades as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. For instance, I had no idea that she couThere is so much more to Harriet Tubman than her heroic escapades as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. For instance, I had no idea that she counseled John Brown, or that she worked as a nurse in service of the Union Army (American Civil War), or that she fought for the inclusion of African-American women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The lady was an activist before the term ‘activist’ was ever coined—and yet historical accounts of her accomplishments have been edited and re-edited and manipulated to make them more palatable for white audiences.
Outside of a plethora of children’s books, this was probably the first serious attempt to document the life of Harriet Tubman since Earl Conrad gave it his best shot in 1943. Kate Larson is a gifted writer and biographer and she captures the depth and complexity of Tubman’s remarkable story without sensationalizing it or burying it under a mountain of platitudes. Four Stars....more
“One of the things I remember most vividly about the fundamentalist church I belonged to as a child is the way my pastor’s voice sounded whenever he s“One of the things I remember most vividly about the fundamentalist church I belonged to as a child is the way my pastor’s voice sounded whenever he spoke the word “homosexual” from the pulpit . . . he’d pronounce the word as if it tasted bad, like he was grossed out and gagging just uttering the word.”
In the eyes of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, Amber Cantorna-Wylde is an abomination.
“It’s tragic and it’s lethal, taking something as pure and simple as love and turning it into a weapon of division that religion and politics use to pit conservatives against liberals, parents against children, and theology against basic humanity.”
I am completely in Amber’s corner—the woman is a warrior—but I admit that I don’t totally understand how she, or any religiously persecuted LGBTQ+ individual, can maintain faith when faith is the hammer used to pound decent human beings into molds of conformity. She does write briefly about mistranslations of the bible, specifically the “The Clobber Verses”—six scriptures that fundamentalist Christians say denounce same-sex relationships—to justify her continued faith, but rather than deep diving into the topic she encourages her readers toward further self-investigation.
“Because evangelicals believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible, with little thought for the involvement of human translators, we were taught that the word “homosexual” has been in the Bible for as long as the Bible has been around. But that simply is not true . . . the word “homosexual” has only been in the Bible for seventy-seven years [since 1946].”
[ref: 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, documentary, directed by Sharon Roggio, 2023]
And it’s not just the “clobber verses” that Amber takes a swing at. She is also outspoken about the quiver full theology, purity culture, and conversion therapy. It took her years of hard work to try and undo the damage FOTF has inflicted on her person and embrace the truth that says, in spite of her family, she has a right to exist and to pursue life and love on her own terms.
Its optimistic Christian slant not withstanding, I think this is an important book and I hope it sells a million copies. Five Big Stars. ____________________________________
“I was talking to some Christians [who] invited these gay children to come into their home and to come to church, to influence them. And I thought to myself, those parents aren’t going to influence those kids; those kids are going to influence those parents’ children. We have to understand who the enemy is and what he wants to do. He wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation . . . We have to be so careful who we let into the churches . . . You cannot stay gay and call yourself a Christian.” -Franklin Graham
“You know what the ‘B’ [in LGBTQ] stands for? Bisexual. That’s orgies! That’s lots of sex with lots of people.” -James Dobson
“If I want to just go marry a donkey, is that okay?” -Dave Arnold, Amber’s father...more
“It's just a fact, the men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes. That women are not in this field is just a fact of our social order.” -Joh“It's just a fact, the men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes. That women are not in this field is just a fact of our social order.” -John Glenn
In early 1978, NASA announced the names of 35 “astronaut candidates” (ASCANs) selected to train for the new Space Shuttle program. Among the people selected were four men of color and six (white) women. It was an integration that was insufficient but long overdue. The six women would go on to smash NASA’s glass ceiling in the astronaut corps, dismantling barriers and clearing the way for pioneers like Mae Jemison, America’s first female Black astronaut, who would blaze a trail of her own beginning in 1987.
Loren Grush’s The Six is a well written chronicle of the difficulties, challenges, and struggles encountered whenever a Boy’s Club is encroached upon by uterus-bearing brainiacs who are just as capable (sometimes MORE capable) than their testicle-toting antagonists. Remember the names—Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, Margaret “Rhea” Seddon, and Shannon Lucid....more
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