In the 1800s, there were gradualists who said, we want to end slavery, but we want to do it in steps. They remind me of the debates over slavery in this country and ending slavery. That kind of pushing back the clock, which is a phrase that we use all the time, is a way in which those in power like to say to those of us who don’t have power, we’re going to determine not only what you get, but when you get it.Īnd that is the critical difference between young activists who are in the streets saying, change it now, change it today, we don’t want your gradualism. And they do so by saying, we will get there. White people dictate the pace of social inclusion. We have racial animus the likes of which we have not seen in my lifetime, a resurgence of law enforcement engaging black folks in ways that are often deadly and often with impunity. We keep on relitigating basically the 1860s in this country. And part of the reason that we have, for instance, Black History Month in this country is because we literally have to make the argument that black people have actually done things that are significant to the creation of the nation-state.Īnd it turns out if we didn’t have things like Black History Month, apparently, people wouldn’t believe that black people were actually significant historical actors. Time has a history, and so do black people. So, in the 1700s and 1800s, various groups of white European men got together and just decided that Africa didn’t matter in the span of world history. And there’s a way that, even if you go back to the early Western philosophers that everybody loved - my least favorite is Georg Hegel, who said, you know, Africa is no historic part of the world. White people feel like they own time and control history. But I think that being both those things is the thing that will save us. I’m unapologetically black, and I’m unapologetically a feminist.Īnd, look, depending on what circles you’re in, it’s hard to be both those things at the same time. She calls on us to look at the past during this Black History Month and recognize change shouldn’t always be gradual.Ĭooper recently came out with a new book, “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower.”īrittney Cooper: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower: I’m a black feminist, capital B, capital F. In tonight’s Brief But Spectacular, we hear from cultural theorist, author and professor Brittney Cooper. Cooper considers herself a small-town Southern girl at heart, which explains her affinity for soul food, crunk music, and warm weather.Judy Woodruff: Questions of race and power are obviously not limited to the movies. Professor Cooper blogs for the CFC as "Crunktastic."Ī native of Ruston, Louisiana, Dr. The Collective also does speaking tours, conducts workshops, and engages in a range of activist causes related to women's issues. The CFC blog was also named as one of the top 25 Black blogs to watch in 2012 by The and one of the top "Lady Blogs" by New York Magazine in November 2011. Three members of the CFC were recently profiled in Essence Magazine's list of Young, Black, and Amazing women under age 35 (August 2012 issue). Susana Morris of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a feminist of color scholar-activist group that runs a highly successful blog. She has a forthcoming article on Sapphire's Push as a hip hop novel.ĭr. She has published several book chapters and articles on representations of Black women in popular culture, including a piece on the representation of the "baby-mama" figure in Hip Hop music and film, the feminist implications of Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl mishap, and the importance of Michelle Obama in the tradition of Black female leadership. Using Black feminist thought to understand contemporary articulations of Black womanhood is Dr. She has two forthcoming book chapters on the history of the Order of Eastern Star and the history of Black women's fraternal and club activism in North Louisiana. Cooper studies Black women's organizations as sites for the production of intellectual thought. Along with work on black female public intellectuals, Dr. In particular, this work interrogates the manner in which public Black women have theorized racial identity and gender politics, and the methods they used to operationalize those theories for the uplift of Black communities.
She is author of Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (University of Illinois Press, May 2017) and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower(St. Cooper is co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press 2017). in English and Political Science, Howard Universityīlack Women’s Intellectual History, Black Feminist Thought, Hip Hop Feminisms, Hip Hop Studies, Race and Gender Representation in Popular Culture, Digital Feminisms, and New Media.ĭr. in American Studies, Emory University (2009)ī.A.
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