Colonize This! Young Women Of Color On Today’s Feminism — Daisy Hernandez
“As young women of color, we have both a different and similar relationship to feminism as the women in our mothers’ generation…The difference is that now we talk about these issues in women’s studies classes, in classrooms that are multicultural but xenophobic and in a society that pretends to be racially integrated but remains racially profiled.”
Redefining Realness — Janet Mock
“When I think of identity, I think of our bodies and souls and the influences of family, culture, and community - the ingredients that make us. James Baldwin describes identity as ‘the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self.’ The garment should be worn “loose,” he says, so we can always feel our nakedness. ‘This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s robes.’ I’m still journeying toward that place where I’m comfortable in this nakedness, standing firmly in my interlocking identities.”
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches — Audre Lorde
“Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.”
Feminism Is For Everybody — bell hooks
“Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression…Practically, it is a definition which implies that all sexist thinking and action is the problem, whether those who perpetuate it are female or male, child or adult.”
This Bridge Called My Back: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment — Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
“We are challenging white feminists to be accountable for their racism because at the base we still want to believe that they really want freedom for all of us.”
Literally anything by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989. From her article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”:
“Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have failed to consider intersectional identities such as women of color…I consider how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourses of either feminism or antiracism.”
Want more recs? Another Round host and glorious human Tracy Clayton compiled a list of 13 more books on feminism and intersectionality by women of color.
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