Santa Monica College Communications Questions

Griffin, R. (2012). I AM an Angry Black Woman: Black Feminist Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance. Women’s Studies in Communication, 35: 138-157.

-Introduce the article

-3 cited quotations that stood out to you, what did the text say that you found insightful or important

-What did you learn?

Women’s Studies in Communication
ISSN: 0749-1409 (Print) 2152-999X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uwsc20
I AM an Angry Black Woman: Black Feminist
Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance
Rachel Alicia Griffin
To cite this article: Rachel Alicia Griffin (2012) I AM an Angry Black Woman: Black Feminist
Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance, Women’s Studies in Communication, 35:2, 138-157, DOI:
10.1080/07491409.2012.724524
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2012.724524
Published online: 02 Nov 2012.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 1180
View related articles
Citing articles: 11 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uwsc20
Download by: [Loyola Marymount University]
Date: 25 April 2017, At: 11:00
Women’s Studies in Communication, 35:138–157, 2012
Copyright # The Organization for Research on Women and Communication
ISSN: 0749-1409 print=2152-999X online
DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2012.724524
I AM an Angry Black Woman: Black Feminist
Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance
RACHEL ALICIA GRIFFIN
Department of Speech Communication, Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale, Carbondale, Illinois, USA
This article couples Black feminist thought (Collins, 2009) and autoethnography to
advocate for Black feminist autoethnography (BFA) as a theoretical and methodological means for Black female academics to critically narrate the pride and pain of
Black womanhood. Rooted in my desire to ‘‘talk back’’ (hooks, 1989) to systemic
oppression as a biracial (Black and White) Black woman, I position anger as a
productive force that fuels coming to voice through BFA as an act of resistance.
In this article, BFA is used to self-reflexively explore my everyday experiences as
an ‘‘outsider within’’ (Collins, 1986) and problematize the omnipresence of racism
and sexism (at the least) in the everyday lives of Black women. Situating my anger
as just and justifiable, I locate my voice directly in response to controlling imagery,
such as the angry sapphire that denotes angry women of color as unruly, while
simultaneously highlighting the need for ‘‘progressive Black sexual politics’’
(Collins, 2005, p. 16) that bear witness to the productive anger of Black women.
Keywords anger, autoethnography, biracial identity, Black feminist thought,
resistance, voice
Anger is loaded with information and energy. (Lorde, 1984, p. 127)
I AM an Angry Black Woman. Unapologetically, rationally, and rightfully so. I am
blistering mad! I am frustrated and enraged! I am devastated, and my blood is
boiling at a temperature so hot that I think my heart might stop beating at any given
moment! I am so angry that I feel neurotic; it feels as if my mind has been lost to my
critical eyes (Pelias, 2000). Every morning when I wake up and inhale our world, my
anger is accompanied by a sharp pain that twists my spirit and challenges my faith.
Making my pain a matter of public record as a biracial Black woman1 is terrifying.
For as long as I can remember my Black=White, White=Black body has been
taboo: a detested female bridge suspended between racial locations (Anzaldúa,
1990; Ono, 1997). Written to those who embrace binaries as absolute, trample on
A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the 2010 National Communication Association Conference.
The author would like to express sincere thanks to the reviewers, Dr. Elyse L. Pineau,
Dr. Tina Harris, and Ms. Althea Hart for their encouragement and insight.
Address correspondence to Rachel Alicia Griffin, Department of Speech Communication, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1100 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, IL
62901, USA. E-mail: Rachelag@siu.edu
138
Black Feminist Autoethnography
139
agency with their essentialist stampede, and feed into the frenzy of dehumanizing
Others, this article illuminates the omnipresence of oppression in the lives of
Black women in general and in my own life as a biracial Black female academic in
particular.
To do so, I first address the invisibility of Black women in the field of communication and the larger academy. Then, I chronologically process through my personal
introduction to Black feminist thought to position Black feminist scholarship in
conversation with autoethnography. Connecting the two leads to a discussion of
Black feminist autoethnography (BFA), followed by my use of anger to fuel my
Black feminist autoethnographic reflections. Finally, I end with a discussion of the
rich offerings of BFA as a means of resistance that can inspire alliances at the intersections of marginalization and privilege. I invite readers on my journey to position
BFA as a means for Black academic women to highlight and challenge U.S.
American society’s failure to fully reckon with racism and sexism. In response to this
failure, I AM an angry Black woman.
For those who are angry right alongside me, I welcome your presence and can
only hope that this article helps strengthen your determined embrace of autoethnographic writing as a means of resistance. This work is dedicated to every woman of
color who has had to bite her tongue so hard that it bleeds to protect her body, mind,
soul, loved ones, livelihood, or even her life. Preparing us for this venture, Calafell
and Moreman (2009) remind us that ‘‘Feminists of color have long argued for the
importance of listening to the experiences of women of color and attending to the
politics that underlie these voices’’ (p. 124). More expressly in relation to Black
women, numerous scholars within and beyond the field of communication have
marked the invisibility of scholarship by and about Black women (Collins, 1986,
2009; Davis, 1998, 1999; hooks, 1981; Houston, 1992; Houston & Davis, 2002).
Reflecting on history, Davis (1998) asks, ‘‘Where is the critical voice which speaks
to Black women’s identity constituted in the experience of slavery, exile, pilgrimage,
and struggle?’’ (p. 83). Speaking to contemporary scholarship, Houston and Davis
(2002) offer, ‘‘The unfortunate fact is that communication scholars have yet to
develop a substantial body of scholarship that explores the lived communicative
experiences of African American women’’ (pp. 2–3).
Black women have much to be angry about in the academy, including the poor
representation of Black female scholars (Gregory, 2002; ‘‘The Profession,’’ 2011)2
and the difficulty of getting race-related research published (Hendrix, 2002, 2005,
2010; Orbe, Smith, Groscurth, & Crawley, 2010), both of which fuel the absence
of emancipatory scholarship by and about Black women. Looking back to move
forward, the anger that I feel is not inventive, since Black women have furiously contested injustice in education and elsewhere for centuries (Allen, 1998; Cooper, 1995;
Davis, 1998; hooks, 1981; Houston, 1992; Jones, 2003; Lorde, 1984; Madison, 1994,
2009; Patton, 2004; Shange, 1975; Stewart, 1992; Truth, 1992). While I find a fierce
sense of hope in the power of repetition, my hopefulness feels tender up against the
grim reality that past calls for equality voiced by Black women have yet to genuinely
resonate with the hearts of most. Nevertheless, I am optimistic in believing if I step
into the space that resistant cries have created, maybe, just maybe, something about
my resistant voice in this moment will be heard, taken in, and taken seriously.
Maybe.
To embody the prideful tenacity that Black womanhood brings forth, I will do
the very things that Black women are discursively disciplined not to do. I will rant
140
R. A. Griffin
without a hint of regret, and I will do so with my head held high believing that I am
worth standing up for in a world that crudely tells me otherwise! Planting my feet in
defiance, I will finish just as I have begun—weary, depleted, ‘‘shaken, though not
shattered’’ (Yancy, 2008, p. 2), and convinced that I am a brilliant woman of color
who is worthy of sheer honesty, deep contemplation, and everlasting celebration. To
soothe my nerves and strengthen my voice, I turn to Shange’s (1975) refrain in for
colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf when the lady in
brown says:
somebody=anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin=struggle=hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice (p. 4)
Embracing the cultural practice of call and response across generations, the
articulation of BFA that follows is offered to bear witness to her appeal.
Reading Black Women to Write Myself
I began imagining the promise of BFA in the field of communication while reading
the works of Black feminist writers and activists. The writings that I remember the
most are the ones that seemed to read me as I read. The authors who wrote them
created space for women who look like me to be remembered, considered, and
fought for. These women took to the page with a sense of fury that left permanent
impressions on my heart. As I read, I could feel their fed-up rage bolstered by a
depth of frustration and loss that I have only let myself know in secret.
Remembering each moment of exposure to Black feminist thought, the first
time I read bell hooks’s (1981) Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, I
got chills as she insisted that the world take notice of the historical and contemporary maltreatment of Black women. Titled after Sojourner Truth’s famed speech,
hooks expanded dominant confines of womanhood to include those who are not
White, middle class, and=or formally educated. She beckoned me into her pages
by marking the ironic lip service directed at Black women from within the women’s
liberation and civil rights movements. Using words as her pedagogical arsenal, she
forewarned me of the wars at the complex crossroads of race, gender, and class.
Relieved by her intersectional mindfulness, I accepted the tension that I have
always felt as a biracial Black woman as bona fide, as opposed to dismissing it
as an oversensitive figment of my imagination. bell hooks (1981) not only found
and affirmed me; perhaps most important, she helped me unearth self-love to
serve as my sanctuary in a world largely unwilling to grant me legitimacy as a
human being.
Black Feminist Autoethnography
141
Similarly, Angela Davis’s (1981) pen marked permanent discontent with the
ways that Black women are silenced and often erased in Women, Race, and Class.
As she heightened her refusal of ideological domination with each damning page,
I felt inspired by her desire to mark our oppressors and their purposeful orchestration of Black female suffering as shameful. She reminds us of the historical underpinnings of contemporary Black female invisibility and brings forth the increased
vulnerability and incessant labor of poor Black women. Her words changed me as
she recounted the indignities of slavery and segregation, and the struggles for equal
rights to make certain that those who suffered beyond our contemporary imagination are not forgotten. After Davis came my first reading of Patricia Hill Collins’s
(2000) Black Feminist Thought. Collins brought my pen to life in a way that I had
never known before. As I turned each page, I scribbled in the margins to record
all the ways that I knew her words to be true. Her intellect tickled my heart; I
laughed, trembled, and cried—sometimes all at once.
Having first found Black feminist thought beyond the field of communication, I
eventually turned toward our field hoping to find more of what I had been missing.
Encountering absence and invisibility at first glance, I eventually came to know the
works of Brenda Allen, Olga Davis, and Marsha Houston, followed by Joni Jones,
D. Soyini Madison, and Tracey Owens Patton. The first time that I held Centering
Ourselves: African American Feminist and Womanist Studies of Discourse (Houston
& Davis, 2002), I was struck with delight and dismay. I was delighted to find a book
in our field dedicated to exploring the communicative lives of Black women but dismayed at the ways in which I knew their words to be true when I read ‘‘Black
women’s texts are much more welcomed in higher education classrooms than Black
women themselves’’ (Houston & Davis, 2002, p. 9). Reading this line over and over
again, I felt my face get hot as a slideshow of memories crossed my mind. I remember
the stark moments of being an ‘‘outsider within’’ (Collins, 1986) and an insider
outside as well; the ways that I have always been the ‘‘too Black to be White’’
and ‘‘too White to be Black’’ girl in school. The Oreo. The Zebra. The Mutt.
Centering Ourselves (Houston & Davis, 2002) led me to Houston (1992), who
taught me how to academically defend marking the nuances of Black womanhood
without using the typical ‘‘ ‘add Black women and stir’ approach’’ (Houston,
2000, p. 679). Scared but prepared, I felt ready to begin articulating myself and
my work as intersectional; I began to understand that I could position my body
as a bridge on my own terms. Reminding me of the significance of self-definition
and self-determination, Lorde (2009) says, ‘‘If I do not bring all of who I am to whatever I do, then I bring nothing, or nothing of lasting worth, for I have withheld my
essence’’ (pp. 182–183). Having been barred from bringing my angry essence for so
long, since angry emotions are outlawed for Black women who wish to be welcomed,
I yearned for a medium through which my voice could be heard.
Still academically immature, I craved more insight into the lives of Black women
generated by communication scholars. I wanted to know how they theorized and
what they felt. I was warmed and warned by the transparency of Davis (1999), Jones
(2003), Patton (2004), and Harris (2007), who politicized and publicized the ways
that racism and sexism infiltrate their experiences as Black women in the academy.
Then a cherished mentor introduced me to Joni Jones and D. Soyini Madison, both
of whom enriched my perspective on how to understand Black feminism as an embodied practice that had been, could be, and needed to continue to be written into our
field. Meeting Miss Bertha on the page, a family elder in her nineties who has
142
R. A. Griffin
‘‘experienced war, poverty, depression, Jim Crow, and civil rights’’ (Madison, 1994,
pp. 46–47), I learned that the bodies, experiences, and voices of Black women do the
important work of communicatively carrying culture. Miss Bertha’s rhythmic voice,
at the intersections of race, gender, class, and age, taught me to listen through my
anger for stories of faith and progress.
After Madison (1994), I began to wonder if I could channel my anger productively and manage to see more than just red. I imagined myself peering purposefully
inward to question how I understand who I am, our world, and how I move through
our world. Slowly grasping how to do so, I listened closely when Lorde (1984) told
me that ‘‘Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against
those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being.
Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress
and change’’ (p. 127). Given the vulnerable enormity of doing such work from a
Black feminist standpoint, in response to the queries of why? Why try, why write,
why speak, why stay, why struggle?, akin to Jones in ‘‘sista docta,’’ ‘‘I believe that
the work can be transformative’’ (Jones, 2003, p. 240). Also, mirroring Houston
(1992) and Collins (2009), I feel obligated to use my access to class and academic
privilege to advocate for women who look like me to have access to voice. I do so
in pursuit of being and becoming a Black woman intellectual (Collins, 2009): ‘‘Black
women intellectuals are neither all academics nor found primarily in the Black middle class. Instead, all U. S. Black women who somehow contribute to Black feminist
thought as critical social theory are deemed to be ‘intellectuals’ ’’ (Collins, 2009,
p. 17). Inspired by Collins (2009), I more clearly came to understand the need to consciously leverage my PhD to work against oppressive forces; having a PhD
accompanied by middle-class status, in and of itself, simply is not enough.
These Black feminist authors and activists, named and unnamed, offered me
what bell hooks (1990) refers to as ‘‘homeplace.’’ Their offering of homeplace as a
space to speak my angry biracial Black female truth is quite meaningful since I have
been wandering somewhere amid and between an ‘‘outsider within’’ (Collins, 1986)
and an insider outside for so long. Jointly, they built a platform from which Black
academic women can autoethnographically narrate the pride and pain of Black
womanhood. Their foundational commitments to self-determination, intersectionality, and strategic essentialism (Boylorn, 2008; Collins, 2009; A. Y. Davis, 1981; O. I.
Davis, 1999; hooks, 1981; Houston & Davis, 2002; Jones, 2003; Lorde, 1984) are
invaluable to creating bodies of academic work that include our subjugated voices
(Collins, 2009). Finding the productive energy of my anger between their lines, it
became fair, real, and speakable. In this article, it is their labor that I wish to honor
and extend through the articulation of BFA as a theoretical and methodological
means to resist the hegemonic imposition of domination.
Locating Common Ground: Black Feminist Thought and Autoethnography
In the field of communication, autoethnographic ‘‘Other stories’’ (Calafell &
Moreman, 2009) that work against systemic forces such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism from the perspectives of women of color remain rare.3 As a
methodology positioned to embrace subjectivity, engage critical self-reflexivity,
speak rather than being spoken for, interrogate power, and resist oppression
(Calafell & Moreman, 2009; Denzin, 1997; Jones, 2005; Warren, 2001), autoethnography can be productively coupled with Black feminist thought for Black female
Black Feminist Autoethnography
143
scholars to ‘‘look in (at themselves) and out (at the world) connecting the personal to
the cultural’’ (Boylorn, 2008, p. 413). In addition, Black women with access to academic privilege can use BFA as a means to speak to, with, and at times for Black
women ‘‘who have no direct access to the public forums of our conferences, journals,
and books’’ (Houston, 1992, p. 55). Affirming Collins’s (2009) assertion that the
experiential insight of Black women offers a ‘‘unique angle of vision’’ (p. 39) despite
our orchestrated exclusion from the epistemological realm, Davis (1999) says, ‘‘Black
women have been invisible to the dominant culture; their unique ways of knowing
and understanding the world have not been known’’ (p. 152).
Positioned to contest this absence, the formal conceptualization4 of BFA renders
Black women more visible in the realm of autoethnography, which in the academy is
more often associated with and published by White women (Calafell, 2007; Calafell
& Moreman, 2009). Such writing exposes, politicizes, and narrates the ‘‘subjugated
knowledge’’ (Collins, 2009) birthed from a standpoint informed by intersectionality
(Beale, 1970; Crenshaw, 1995; King, 1988). Taking the multitude of systemic vulnerabilities that Black women can encounter into account allows us to intersectionally
map how, for example, feminist efforts have been undermined by racism; racial
unity stymied by classism; and class consciousness deferred to preserve patriarchy
(Collins, 2009; Davis, 1981; hooks, 2000). Black feminist autoethnography also
offers a narrative means for Black women to highlight struggles common to Black
womanhood without erasing the diversity among Black women coupled with strategically ‘‘talking back’’ (hooks, 1989) to systems of oppression (e.g., sexism, racism,
ableism, heterosexism, classism).
Breathing life into the meaning of ‘‘talking back,’’ bell hooks offers:
Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the
exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture of
defiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible. It is
that act of speech, of ‘‘talking back,’’ that is no mere gesture of empty
words, that is the expression of our movement from object to subject—
the liberated voice. (1989, p. 9)
Drawing from her insight, fusing Black feminist thought and autoethnography
together necessitates an explicit commitment to move from merely looking at life
toward a standpoint rooted in interrogation, resistance, and praxis. Voicing this
critical commitment, Collins (2009) says, ‘‘knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not
enough—Black feminist thought must both be tied to Black women’s lived experiences and aim to better those experiences in some fashion’’ (p. 35). In alignment with
the overarching commitments of Black feminist thought to ‘‘subjugated knowledge’’
(Collins, 2009) derived from lived experiences, self-definition as empowerment, and
intersectional strategies of resistance (Collins, 2009; hooks, 1981; Lorde, 1984), BFA
as a means to voice is obligated to raise social consciousness regarding the everyday
struggles common to Black womanhood; embrace self-definition as a means for
Black women to be labeled, acknowledged, and remembered as they wish; humanize
Black women at the intersections of multiple forms of oppression; resist the imposition of controlling imagery; and self-reflexively account for how Black women
can reproduce systemic oppression.
Although this call for BFA likely reads simple from mouth to ear, it is important
to acknowledge that despite a determined and versatile pursuit of scholarly visibility,
144
R. A. Griffin
there are relatively few Black female communication scholars who have published
accounts of their personal experiences with and=or critiques of oppression (Allen,
1998; Davis, 1999; Harris, 2007; Jones, 2003; Patton, 2004), and even fewer who
explicitly mark their work as autoethnography (Boylorn, 2008; Durham, 2004;
Hendrix, 2011). I suspect, feeling rather queasy myself about this venture, that our
absence is perpetuated by multiple forces. Not only have Black women been taught
and told via dominant discourses that our lived experiences are insignificant but we
have also learned hard lessons around the consequences of speaking our truths to
power. Furthermore, many Black female scholars struggle to achieve ‘‘real’’ scholar
status as academics whose work is widely published, read, respected, and celebrated
(Davis, 1999; Hendrix, 2002, 2005, 2010). Always already concerned with the struggles of publishing race-related research, which is often received with accusations of
self-interest, narcissism, and vendetta (Calafell & Moreman, 2009; Hendrix, 2005,
2010; Orbe et al., 2010), choosing a contested and subjective method such as
autoethnography (Ellis, 2009; Shields, 2000) runs the risk of providing more
ammunition for those with a vested interest in silencing our voices.
Feeling the promise of BFA as I move forward, fueled by the churn of my
anger, I have no intention of keeping the personal private because treading lightly
when it comes to racism and sexism is killing me softly. To ensure that I do not die
a slow death or at least do not pass away in silent demise, I am going to tell you
all that I can about my anger—in anger, through anger, and with anger—to
contest the oft-assumed notion that an angry Black woman is a crazy, domineering
sapphire. Rooted in the social institution of slavery and popularized by the 1950s’
television show Amos ’n Andy (hooks, 1981), Black women as sapphires are
characterized as evil, dangerous, and vengeful via their rage, hostility, and
conniving wit (hooks, 1981; Hull, Scott, & Smith, 1982). Describing the sapphire
according to dominant ideology, Cole and Guy-Sheftall (2003) offer ‘‘over
bearing, bossy, sharp-tongued, loud-mouthed, controlling and, of course, emasculating’’ (p. xxxiii).
Reminding us of the sapphire’s contemporary presence via the ‘‘angry black
woman’’ (ABW) stereotype, Madison (2009) deconstructs public discourse surrounding First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and argues,
‘‘To stereotype her was both easier and more compatible with normalized notions
of gender and blackness than to engage the more complicated genealogy of black
rage in the USA’’ (p. 323). Importantly delineating between Black women as the
stereotypical ABW and Lorde’s (1984) articulation of anger as righteous and useful,
Madison offers, ‘‘To disassemble the stereotype and attempt to comprehend the contexts of black women’s anger opens the possibility of radically altering assumptions
about belonging relative to the rewards, consequences, and constructions of citizenship’’ (2009, p. 323; emphasis in original). In the section that follows, I articulate
my anger productively as an example of BFA.
Angry Black Feminist Autoethnographic Reflections
Preparing to encounter my anger on the page, I imagine we will mutually (albeit
likely at different moments and for different reasons) feel unnerved, upset, and
unsettled—perhaps even bludgeoned by my candor. Nourishing the possibility that
fury can bring, Audre Lorde (1984) reminds us that angry emotions
Black Feminist Autoethnography
145
will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the
content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend
ourselves against the manner of saying. (p. 131)
Finding hope in her words, I move closer to the risk of BFA with watery eyes and,
like Smith, ‘‘holding my breath . . . and putting on my body armor’’ (Orbe et al.,
2010, p. 185). To calm the flood of fear, I look back to Lorde (1984) one more time
for encouragement:
We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are
wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is
poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still
be no less afraid. (Lorde, 1984, p. 42)
As her words dance between my ears, I garner a sense of agency. Swallowing her
sweet candor like a lit match, my anger flares up, urging me to fight for myself on
the page harder than I ever have before because even if I shut up in all the ways
the world tells me to as a Black=White, White=Black female Other, I will still be
no less afraid.
This realization swells my anger to the point of overflow like a pot of water that
has reached a scalding boil. I feel enraged that much of my daily labor is anchored in
convincing others of my humanity. Every day, I encounter the price of resisting what
we all have been socialized to believe I am: a hot mama, a money-hungry whore, a
public charge. Crouching in the lonely corners of my heart, I fear the lesson that our
histories preach:
Cerebral Minds and Humanized Bodies of Black Women
UNWELCOME HERE
Despite my angst, I position my access to voice as a form of academic and class
privilege. Although forces of systemic oppression have been and continue to be
imposed upon my life, to voice my anger reflects privilege alongside marginalization
because many without reprieve or recourse live with their anger, ending their lives
long before the promise of death delivers. Buttressed by those who left a trail, I have
reached a critical turning point in my ‘‘personal=academic’’ (Ono, 1997) life: I am
more afraid of silence than I am of the harsh response my voice will likely beckon.
At least I think I am. As I catch and release my anger through BFA, I speak not for
all Black women but for myself in the hopes that my voice will echo and affirm the
experiences of women who look like me.
Tracing My Anger
Countless times in my life, I have been asked from someone using an exasperated
tone, ‘‘Rachel, why are you so angry?,’’ as if the expression of my anger should come
with a warning sign, an apology, and a cleanup crew. On most occasions my
response is to pose questions back by saying, ‘‘Look into the world. How can I
not be angry? How can you not be angry?’’ On a day when sass spills off the tip
of my tongue, I might add, ‘‘How can the whole damn world NOT be angry?’’ Confronting these inquiries, I have discovered the usefulness of tracing my Black female
rage through and among the lives of women who look like me: their perspectives,
146
R. A. Griffin
experiences, actions, lives, and deaths. Here I offer the same, in case you too are
wondering why I am so damn angry.
I am angry at the White Europeans who implanted the roots of systemic violence
and callous disregard in the United States when they built the social institution of
slavery. I am angry at the Black Africans who sold women who look like them into
that same treacherous system. I am angry that the conditions of slavery were so vile
that many Black mothers knew in their hearts that killing their babies offered them
more relief than living ever would. I am angry at Black men who maim and brutalize
the bodies of Black women and use racism as a justification for their violent choices.
I am angry at the pacifying effort of dominant society to offer remembrance as if it
were an equal exchange for the loss of life. For example, I find the convenient presence of Blackness in the public eye during Black History Month troubling because
our realities as people of color are shaped and shaded according to racist ideologies
all year round. I am angry that Black History Month can be more accurately titled
Black Male History Month, given the remembrance of Black women on the margins
of the margins. The example that strikes closest to my heart is that Dr. Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr., as almighty as he became, was in high school when Rosa
Parks began building the foundation for collective resistance that birthed the civil
rights movement (McGuire, 2010). Knowing that Parks, one of few Black women
nationally and internationally acknowledged for her advocacy, is most often remembered secondary to King brings forth the painful frustration that only erasure and
loss can bring.
I am angry and dismayed that we forget to remember Black women. At a
moment when our nation was on a postracial high, I found myself slung low in
the depths of despair. When Senator Barack Obama began campaigning for the
Democratic presidential nomination, the excitement of millions of Americans was
tangible. I too got chills at the possibility of having a president of color and I too
cried tears of joy at his inauguration, and yet my anger, at the absence of Shirley
Chisholm’s memory, has yet to subside. As the first Black woman elected to
Congress in 1968 and the first woman and African American to campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 (Chisholm, 1970; Lynch & Sissel,
2004), where was her name on our national lips? Most often I heard the mention
of Jesse Jackson’s campaigns in 1984 and 1988, although he too had followed in
the footsteps of Chisholm. Once again, the inspiring labor of Black women rendered
infuriatingly obsolete.
Placing my own formal education on my angry line, I was never academically
inspired by the works of women who looked like me in school because they were
not brought into my classrooms. With the exception of a few doctoral courses that
I took near the end of more than 20 years as a student, Black women were largely
absent in my studies. I was not required to learn their life stories or admire their
accomplishments the way that I was taught about George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln as early presidents of the United States, Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a suffragette, or Louisa May Alcott as the author of Little Women. You can imagine my
wrath when I learned about Henrietta Lacks for the first time when I was 29. She
was a poor Black woman born in the segregated South who became one of the most
important people in the history of medical science (Skloot, 2010). Her cells,
harvested unethically in the 1950s before and after she died from cervical cancer,
were the first human cells to grow outside of the human body. Known as HeLa cells,
they have been used in more than 60,000 experiments and to develop treatments for
Black Feminist Autoethnography
147
diseases ranging from basic influenza to ghastly forms of cancer (Cohen, 2011;
Skloot, 2010). The questions that call my anger front and center are: What if I did
not have the resources to educate myself? What if I had never earned a PhD? Let
us not forget that most women who look like me never walk the halls of the ivory
tower. This grim reality necessitates another question: Why aren’t more Black
women positioned to write our lives into multiple levels of formal education? Moreover, why are the works of those who have written themselves into our histories typically not assigned by teachers?5
I AM Angry. I am angry at the absurdity of our absence.
I AM Angry. I am angry at my silence and yours; at my complicity and
yours; at my world and ours.
I AM Angry.
My Body Is Not Your Mediated Playground
Turning toward a contemporary killing ground for the Black female body, the media
is like an execution squad from which there is no escape. Everywhere I turn as a
‘‘Black feminist spectator’’ (Madison, 1995; hooks, 1992), I see images of my body
held hostage as Other; entrapped in the controlling imagery of the mammy, jezebel,
sapphire, matriarch, and the more contemporary welfare queen, hoodrat, freak,
crazy Black bitch, superwoman, or some combination thereof (Collins, 2009; hooks,
1989, 1992; Hull et al., 1982; Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001; Reynolds-Dobbs, Thomas,
& Harrison, 2008). In the trenches of ‘‘Black sexual politics’’ (Collins, 2005) that
inform who I understand myself to be and how I am perceived and treated by others,
I find myself constantly struggling for liberation in the airwaves, on television and
the silver screen, in the classroom, and on the sidewalk. Reflecting on the time
and energy that this struggle requires, my rage manifests in waves of unfairness.
The body that I cherish and the mind that I have worked hard to cultivate are
continually maimed in song after song, image after image, and plot after plot.
I am angry at every fan who buys any album that refers to any Black woman as a
bitch, a ho, or a trick. Who I am is up to no one other than me, regardless of what I
say or how I look, and yet these stereotypes are scrawled upon the backs (and across
the asses) of women who look like me day after day. I am also angry at The Princess
and the Frog being celebrated as a sign of societal progress when Disney created the
first Black princess character 72 years after the first White princess, Snow White,
debuted. Yes, little Black girls can love her, and yes, the film can be entertaining,
but let us not forget that the exclusion of a Black princess was not accidental. Perhaps even more telling is that Princess Tiana spent more time on screen as a green
amphibian than she did as a Black princess.6 An equal source of dismay, Tyra Banks
makes me furious for not understanding why having an entire episode of America’s
Next Top Model with models appearing in Blackface is demeaning and problematic.
In response to my frustration, mirrored by the negative criticism she received in the
media, Ms. Banks offered:
I want to be very clear: I, in no way, put my ‘‘Top Models’’ in blackface . . . . I’m a black woman. I am proud. I love my people and the struggle that we have gone through continues and the last thing that I would
148
R. A. Griffin
ever do is be a part of something that degraded my race. I’m sorry to anybody that watched ‘‘Top Model’’ and was offended by the pictures
because they didn’t understand the real story behind them or even if
you did see the whole episode and you were still offended, I truly apologize because that is not my intention . . . . My intention is to spread beauty
and break down barriers. (Access Hollywood, 2009)
In response, I can accept her apology, and yet all I can think to say in a tone that
discloses my angry temper is: Given the historical degradation of Blackface performances (Patton, 2008), how in the hell does painting light and White women dark
help ‘‘spread beauty’’ and ‘‘break down barriers’’?
Not quite finished with media moguls, I am also angry at Tyler Perry for not
using his talent to represent Black women as strong, talented women in love with
themselves for who they are and what they have to offer, as opposed to the cascade
of controlling imagery that unfolds in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, the series of
Madea films, and recently released For Colored Girls. Of particular disgust are the
pervasive stereotypes in his screenplay adaptation For Colored Girls based upon
Shange’s (1975) revolutionary text for colored girls who have considered suicide when
the rainbow is enuf. Her original work, celebrated as a ‘‘black feminist bible’’ (Tillet,
2010), was revived by Perry only to be invaded by his patriarchal privilege. Rightly
celebrated as the highest paid man in the entertainment business and the first Black
owner of a major film studio (Aitken, 2011; Segal, 2009), I am angry at him for not
aspiring to positive and progressive representations of Black womanhood.
Intellectually, I know the media labors to take Black female bodies down
because if they did not chuck us into the spoils of inferiority and exile then someone
would have to explain the lack of positive representations of Black women. I also
know that those in media do not want to explain themselves to my sorrowful rage;
no one wants to answer to Black female disgust fueled by centuries of indignation—
and no one will, because no one makes them. I can hear the inklings of ‘‘Rachel,
calm down. It’s only entertainment.’’ In a one-word response: No. No, I will not
calm down, take it back a notch, or sweep the cancerous mass of controlling imagery
under the proverbial rug. It matters; media representation matters! Like Collins
(2005), I am not arguing that media representations determine behavior or treatment; however, media does have the power to shape, influence, and suggest who
people are and subsequently how they can acceptably be treated (Collins, 2005;
Madison, 2005). For Black women, this reality is bleak, hence even in the absence
of ourselves in popular culture we are defined against dominant notions of White
femininity and the characteristics that we are hegemonically presumed not to have:
innocence, beauty, worth, and virtue.7 This relentless assault of negative media
representations on our humanity is consequential (Collins, 2009; hooks, 1992;
Jordan-Zachery, 2009); such practices continually foreclose the possibilities of being
known and understood beyond the pretense of controlling imagery that promotes
dehumanizing, and for Black women in particular internalized, understandings of
Black women as inferior, unintelligent, dependent, idle, and undeserving (Atwater,
2009; Boylorn, 2008; Joseph, 2009; Madison, 1995, 2009).
In moments of recoil, my anger morphs into a bottomless ache for justice in
media representation. I want to turn on the television and see my radiant self
reflected back to me. I want to see an intellectual Black woman who is not figuratively or literally screwing her way to the top, as if her mind cannot get her there. I
Black Feminist Autoethnography
149
want to see the courage, strength, and wisdom of Black women applauded and
admired. I want to see a Black woman prized for her cunning smarts without being
ridiculed. Rocking to an inner melody of desperation, I want someone, some show,
or some song to choose to tell me that I matter and make millions!
I AM Angry. I am angry at the repressive presence of Black women in the
media.
I AM Angry. I am angry that the media has frowned upon my biracial
Black female body my entire life. To those who oversee the institutionalized degradation of Black women in the media, you have just been
served. Take note: my body is no longer your playground.
I AM Angry.
Remembering Our Interdependence and Saying My Prayers
I do not identify with organized religion, and yet I do say my prayers often. I pray
for mutual recognition, reciprocal appreciation, and joint resistance. I want people
to gaze at one another with a wistful sense of hope that guides their bruised hands
and broken fingers, crushed by others before, to reach out across their differences
again. Speaking to our struggle steeped in the politics of coexistence and voice, bell
hooks told us long ago, ‘‘Certainly for black women, our struggle has not been to
emerge from silence into speech but to change the nature and direction of our speech,
to make a speech that compels listeners, one that is heard’’ (hooks, 1989, p. 6). In
essence, Black women need to flood the airways with our pride, pain, and anger,
and to do so we need unconditional love and support from those who look like us
and those who do not. While our voices will sound different at the intersections of
our identities and be negotiated by the privilege (if any) we have access to, we have
got to speak up at home, work, town-hall meetings, church, parent=teacher
conferences, bus stops, conferences, clinics, gyms, and in the media—everywhere,
all the time.
We need to get used to the sound of our own voices demanding space and
respect because each one of us deserves it, and we must understand that we are all
worthy of the energy of another. In this moment, I am reminded of the astute insight
of Maria Stewart when she said, ‘‘You can but die if you make the attempt; and we
shall certainly die if you do not’’ (qtd. in Richardson, 1987, p. 38). Her outspokenness strengthens my belief that our interdependent futures are clearly written on the
oppressive walls of our times unless we erase, rebuild, and rewrite them ourselves.
Maintaining faith in humanity, Black women have got to resist, imagine, and insist
upon a different world.
If your tongue tingles with fear at the notion of holding your resistant voice and
your ears cringe anticipating the words they will hear in response, I want you to
know that mine do too. If your stomach feels ill at the thought of publicly ranting,
I want you to know that mine does too. I have cried until I felt cold inside trying to
find my way home to myself, and my cold tears have turned my cheeks hot trying to
find my way home to you. Moving closer to my angry truth, I really just want people
to see ourselves in one another. A new sense of accountability to self and other rocks
my soul when I understand myself as every Black woman who has been abused,
forgotten, and demoralized. I am every Black woman who craves to be cherished,
150
R. A. Griffin
protected, and loved only to be systemically scorned while praying to the high
heavens that her mind, body, and spirit can withstand another brutal blow. Embracing the interconnectedness of shared humanity, I am part of her and you are part of
me. My call for people to see ourselves in one another is not meant to minimize the
significance of our unique individuality at the intersections. Yet despite our
differences, I am hopeful that we can and will choose to do more for each other.
I AM Angry that the world remains locked in scornful gaze upon Black
women.
I AM Angry that marginalized populations remain entrapped in divisive
politics that mask the potential of building coalitions in the midst of
our differences.
I AM Angry. Not a hysterical, ill, harebrained, eccentric, nutty, foolish,
childish, juvenile, wild, savage, primitive, uncivilized, boorish, crude,
inept, asinine, screwy, loony, cracking up, or crazy sapphire but justly
and justifiably angry.
We have been as invisible to the dominant culture as rain; we have been
knowers, but we have not been known. (Braxton, 1989, p. 1)
A Momentary End
Exhausted as I near the end of my endless Black feminist autoethnographic reflections,
my rage is accompanied by the realization that what I want is for people to acknowledge
with a sense of urgency that Black women—all Black women—matter. Collectively, I
want us to remember that Sarah Baartman was dissected and displayed in the name
of scientific knowledge (Fausto-Sterling, 1995) and Margaret Garner killed her daughter
to spare her from the horrors of slavery (Mintz, 2009). I want us to imagine the price
paid by Angela Davis when she was forced to run from a country that was supposed
to be her home (Davis, 1974)8 and Anita Hill when she was sacrificed at the stoop of
White patriarchy for testifying, at the call of federal subpoena, against Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment (Morrison, 1992).9 I want us to respect Desiree Washington
for her courage to name Mike Tyson, the youngest heavyweight champion of the world
in 1986, as her rapist (ABC News, 1992).10 Combined with my desire that we enlighten
our collective memory, I want us to acknowledge the struggle that systems of oppression
necessitate for women of color to endure, succeed, and even just breathe.
While BFA cannot rectify the repeated failures of dominant society to respect
the humanity of Black women nor eradicate the harm that Black women have
already and continue to endure, what BFA can do is mark our determined presence
and rich contributions within and beyond the academy; document our strength amid
the grind of imposed struggles; serve as an emotive release; and perhaps most important, preserve the collective wisdom of our lived experiences. In this vein, BFA
emerges as a conduit to resistant voice and situates Black women as not only
knowers, who read dominant culture as a means to survive, but also as known
through our own words and expressions.
While I am convinced of the power of BFA to flourish as an academic means to
highlight and challenge the oppressive forces that Black women encounter in their
Black Feminist Autoethnography
151
daily lives, both its potential and power will be undermined if it is not used to build
humanizing alliances at the intersections of marginalization and privilege. Reminding us of the complexity of such work, Anzaldúa (1990) says:
Alliance work is the attempt to shift positions, change positions, reposition ourselves regarding our individual and collective identities. In
alliance we are confronted with the problem of how we share or don’t
share space, how we can position ourselves with individuals or groups
who are different from and at odds with each other, how can we reconcile
one’s love for diverse groups when members of these groups do not love
each other, cannot relate to each other, and don’t know how to work
together. (p. 219)
Picking her words up off the page, I understand alliance building as difficult,
daring, and indispensible. This is not to say that certain identities cannot be rendered more or less salient, identity-based issues cannot be positioned as more or
less significant, or people must ideologically agree to come together; but it is to
say that if systems of oppression work in unison, then so should those who are
targeted by oppressive forces. Emphasizing our vested interest in listening, feeling, and taking seriously the autoethnographic reflections of multiple Others,
Lorde (1983), targeted simultaneously by racism, sexism, and heterosexism,
tells us:
I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only
one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts
upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they
appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not
be long until they appear to destroy you. (p. 9)
In this vein, it becomes essential to understand BFA not only as a means of resistance but also as instrumental to building community. In short, the stories we tell
about our lives matter. Stories can inspire self-reflexivity, expose the intricate workings of power, and bring complicity and complacency with domination to light; they
can also behold ‘‘resistive power and liberatory potential’’ (Flores, 2000, p. 692) and
spark the possibility of identification and trust between and among different
identities and interests.
Having spoken through BFA, I need time to rest and heal. My body as a bridge
between private and public=personal and academic=self and other (Anzaldúa, 1990;
hooks, 1989; Ono, 1997) feels bruised and battered. My fingertips feel injured from
punching the keyboard, and my head hurts from racing to keep up with my heart. I
feel drained to the max but remain committed now more than ever to seeing my
anger through to praxis.
I want to see the day when bodies in all colors and shapes and sizes and
textures are regarded as precious rather than projects to be worked on,
up, and over.
I want to see the day when people hold themselves and each other
accountable for thriving upon the pain of others.
152
R. A. Griffin
I want all women of all colors to come together to speak for ourselves, to
bear witness to the damage we have done, and to brace one another for
the struggles that remain.
I AM an Angry Black Woman.
I AM an Angry Black Woman who feels hopeful, sees promise, and desires
progress.
Notes
1. I choose to identify as a biracial Black woman to mark both avowal and ascription in regard
to identity performance. Hence, I identify myself as biracial to mark both my Black and
White cultural roots. However, my body is often read solely as Black. I mark this as a political choice that I recognize can be read as offensive. For example, I am often asked, ‘‘Why
can’t you just be Black?’’ which I interpret as a request, from White and Black folks alike,
for me to be ‘‘Black Period’’— as in easily stamped ‘‘understood.’’ While I understand the
desire for simplicity that I interpret backing such requests, in alignment with Collins (2009),
who calls attention to the rich diversity among Black women, I prefer to acknowledge all of
who I am as opposed to picking and choosing among binary oppositions.
2. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education (‘‘The Profession,’’ 2011) Almanac Issue
(reporting on the most recent statistics available), in the fall of 2009 in the United States
4.7% of full, 6.6% of associate, and 7.9% of assistant professors identified as Black and female.
3. While ‘‘Other stories’’ (Calafell & Moreman, 2009) written by women of color in the academy remain rare, especially in national communication journals, there are a number of
powerful, edited collections that address this topic. For examples, see Berry and Mizelle
(2006); James and Farmer (1993); and Niles and Gordon (2011).
4. The use of ‘‘formal conceptualization’’ here is done so intentionally to mark that Black
female activists and scholars such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Maria Stewart,
Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Zora Neale Hurston, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella
Baker, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, June Jordan, Angela
Davis, Michelle Wallace, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Barbara Ransby, Beverly
Guy-Sheftall, Patricia Hill Collins, and innumerable others have been engaged in the
art of rhetoric, narrative, and autoethnographic writing for years without the use of formal academic labels. This list of Black feminist activists is by no means complete. For
compilations of Black feminist works, see Bambara (2005); Guy-Sheftall (1995); Hull,
Scott, and Smith (1982); Lerner (1972); and Smith (2000).
5. For eye-opening discussions of the lack of academic works by and about the lived experiences of Black women and critiques of how systems of oppression constrain the visibility
of the works that have been published, particularly in the field of communication, see
Allen (2002); Davis (1998, 1999); and Houston and Davis (2002).
6. For popular and academic discussions of the celebration and controversy surrounding The
Princess and the Frog, see Barnes (2009); Jones (2009); and Lester (2010).
7. See Madison (1995) for a rich Black feminist critique of the ways that the representation
of Vivian, the White female main character in Pretty Woman, reproduces dominant
notions of Black female inferiority despite the absence of a Black female main character.
8. Angela Davis was a political activist when she was named as an accomplice in a mass
shooting that occurred in August 1970; she was accused because some of the guns used
were registered in her name (Davis, 1974; James, 1998). Believing that the charges were
unjust and based on her association with the Communist and Black Panther parties,
coupled with her fear of the U.S. government’s inhumane practices, she went on the
run for two months and was listed as one of the FBI’s Most Wanted. Captured in
1970, she was arraigned on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder and then fully
acquitted in 1972 (James, 1998).
9. Anita Hill was summoned by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, as a survivor of sexual
harassment, to testify against her perpetrator, Clarence Thomas, when he was nominated
to the Supreme Court in 1991. Forced to testify at hearings called to determine whether
Black Feminist Autoethnography
153
Thomas would be confirmed as the 106th Supreme Court Justice, Hill’s testimony was
aired worldwide via the media, which resulted in racist and sexist criticism being directed
at Hill despite her position as a survivor of gender violence. Despite her credible and graphic testimony, Hill was ostracized as a traitorous sapphire while Thomas was confirmed
to the Supreme Court. Illustrating the ongoing nature of violence against Black women,
Hill was recently contacted by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas: Virginia
Thomas left a phone message in October 2010 requesting an apology from Hill and an
explanation for ‘‘why you did what you did with my husband’’ (Savage, 2010). For popular and academic discussion of the significance of the hearings, see Bell (2004); Gibbs
(1991); Morrison (1992); and Smolowe (1991).
10. On the heels of the Thomas–Hill hearings, Desiree Washington testified against Tyson for
raping her in his hotel room in 1991 in State of Indiana v. Michael G. Tyson. She did so
despite prolific threats, accusations that she was lying, and being stereotyped as a
gold-digging jezebel. Tyson was sentenced to six years, served only three, and was then
welcomed back to his Southington, Ohio, home by fans and a parade, led by Reverend
Al Sharpton, in Harlem, New York (Coleman, 1995; Simms, 1995). For popular and academic discussion of the significance of this case, see Brown (1999); Roberts and Garrison
(1994); Rosenfeld (1992); Steptoe (1992); and White (1999).
References
ABC News. (Producer). (1992). Why she took on Tyson: Magic? Myth? Medicine? [Television
series episode]. 20=20. ABC News.
Access Hollywood (2009, November 19). Tyra Banks finally addresses Top Model bi-racial
photo shoot controversy. Retrieved from http://www.accesshollywood.com/tyra-banksfinally-addresses-top-model-bi-racial-photo-shoot-controversy_article_25749
Aitken, P. C. (2011, September 13). Tyler Perry tops Forbes’ list of highest-paid men in entertainment with $130 million made in a year. New York Daily News. Retrieved from http://
articles.nydailynews.com/2011-09-13/entertainment/30173758_1_forbes-list-brownsand-house-tyler-perry
Allen, B. (1998). Black womanhood and feminist standpoints. Management Communication
Quarterly, 11(4), 575–586.
Allen, B. J. (2002). Goals for emancipatory communication research on Black women. In M.
Houston & O. I. Davis (Eds.), Centering ourselves: African American feminist and womanist studies of discourse (pp. 21–34). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Anzaldúa, G. (1990). Bridge, drawbridge, sandbar, or island: Lesbians of color Haciendo
Alianzas. In L. Albrecht & R. M. Brewer (Eds.), Bridges of power: Women’s multicultural
alliances (pp. 216–231). Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
Atwater, D. F. (2009). African American women’s rhetoric: The search for dignity, personhood,
and honor. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Bambara, T. C. (Ed.). (1970). The Black woman: An anthology. New York, NY: Washington
Square Press.
Barnes, B. (2009, May 29). Her prince has come. Critics, too. New York Times. Retrieved from

Beale, F. M. (1970). Double jeopardy: To be Black and female. In R. Morgan (Ed.),
Sisterhood is powerful: An anthology of writings from the women’s liberation movement
(pp. 340–353). New York, NY: Random House.
Bell, E. L. (2004). Myths, stereotypes, and realities of Black women. Journal of Applied
Behavioral Science, 40(2), 146–159.
Berry, T. R., & Mizelle, N. D. (2006). From oppression to grace: Women of color and their
dilemmas in the academy. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Boylorn, R. M. (2008). As seen on TV: An autoethnographic reflection on race and reality
television. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25(4), 413–433.
Braxton, J. M. (1989). Black women writing autobiography: A tradition within a tradition.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
154
R. A. Griffin
Brown, K. (1999). The social construction of a rape victim: Stories of African-American males
about the rape of Desiree Washington. In D. Carbado (Ed.), Black men on race, gender,
and sexuality: A critical reader (pp. 147–158). New York, NY: New York University Press.
Calafell, B. M. (2007). Latina=o communication studies: Theorizing performance. New York,
NY: Peter Lang.
Calafell, B. M., & Moreman, S. (2009). Envisioning an academic readership: Latina=o performativities per the form of publication. Text and Performance Quarterly, 29(2), 123–130.
Chisholm, S. (1970). Unbought and unbossed. New York, NY: Avon.
Cohen, P. (2011, February 4). Returning the blessings of an immortal life. New York Times.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05lacks.html
Cole, J. B., & Guy-Sheftall, B. (2003). Gender talk: The struggle for women’s equality in African
American communities. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Coleman, C. (1995, June 9). Sharpton says Iron Mike’s no rapist. Daily News, p. 8.
Collins, P. H. (1986). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black
feminist thought. Social Problems, 33, 14–32.
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of
empowerment (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Collins, P. H. (2005). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender, and the new racism.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Collins, P. H. (2009). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of
empowerment (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Cooper, A. J. (1995). The status of women in America. In B. Guy-Sheftall (Ed.), Words of fire:
An anthology of African-American feminist thought (pp. 44–49). New York, NY:
New Press.
Crenshaw, K. W. (1995). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. In D. Danielson & K. Engle (Eds.), After identity: A reader
in law and culture (pp. 332–354). New York, NY: Routledge.
Davis, A. Y. (1974). Angela Davis: An autobiography. New York, NY: Random House.
Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race, and class. New York, NY: Random House.
Davis, O. I. (1998). A Black woman as rhetorical critic: Validating self and violating the space
of otherness. Women’s Studies in Communication, 21(1), 77–89.
Davis, O. I. (1999). In the kitchen: Transforming the academy through safe spaces of resistance. Western Journal of Communication, 63(3), 364–381.
Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Durham, A. (2004). Verbal exchange. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(4), 493–494.
Ellis, C. S. (2009). Fighting back or moving on: An autoethnographic response to critics.
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2(3), 371–378.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1995). Gender, race, and nation: The comparative anatomy of ‘‘Hottentot’’ women in Europe, 1815–1817. In J. Terry & J. Urla (Eds.), Deviant bodies: Critical
perspectives on difference in science and popular culture (pp. 19–47). Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Flores, L. (2000). Reclaiming the ‘‘Other’’: Toward a Chicana feminist critical perspective.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24(5), 687–705.
Gibbs, N. (1991, October 21). Hill vs. Thomas: An ugly circus. Time Magazine. Retrieved
from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974074,00.html
Gregory, S. T. (2002). Black faculty women in the academy: History, status, and future.
Journal of Negro Education, 70(3), 124–138.
Guy-Sheftall, B. (Ed.). (1995). Words of fire: An anthology of African American feminist
thought. New York, NY: New Press.
Harris, T. (2007). Black feminist thought and cultural contracts: Understanding the intersection and negotiation of racial, gendered, and professional identities in the academy. New
Directions for Teaching and Learning, 110, 55–64.
Black Feminist Autoethnography
155
Hendrix, K. G. (2002). Did being Black introduce bias into your study? Attempting to mute
the race-related research of Black scholars. The Howard Journal of Communications, 13,
153–171.
Hendrix, K. G. (2005). An invitation to dialogue: Do communication reviewers mute
the race-related research of scholars of color? Southern Communication Journal, 70,
329–345.
Hendrix, K. G. (2010). Dialoguing with the ‘‘Communication Chorus’’: Mapping the contours
of ‘‘the Morass.’’ Southern Communication Journal, 75(2), 127–136.
Hendrix, K. G. (2011). The growth stages and maturation of an outsider-within: Developing a
critical gaze and earning the right to speak. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(4), 315–324.
hooks, b. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press.
hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Boston, MA: South End
Press.
hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston, MA: South End Press.
hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. Boston, MA: South End Press.
hooks, b. (2000). Where we stand: Class matters. New York, NY: Routledge.
Houston, M. (1992). The politics of difference: Race, class, and women’s communication. In
L. F. Rakow (Ed.), Women making meaning: New feminist directions in communication
(pp. 45–59). New York, NY: Routledge.
Houston, M. (2000). Writing for my life: Community-cognizant scholarship on African
American women and communication. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,
24, 673–686.
Houston, M., & Davis, O. I. (2002). Introduction: A Black women’s angle of vision on communication studies. In M. Houston & O. I. Davis (Eds.), Centering ourselves: African
American feminist and womanist studies of discourse (pp. 1–18). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton
Press.
Hull, G. T., Scott, P. B., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (1982). All the women are White, all the Blacks are
men, but some of us are brave: Black women’s studies. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press.
James, J. (Ed.). (1998). Introduction. In J. James (Ed.), The Angela Davis reader (pp. 1–25).
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
James, J., & Farmer, R. (Eds.). (1993). Spirit, space, and survival: African American women in
(White) academe. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jones, C. (2009, February 16). Disney adds African-American princess Tiana to royal family.
USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/
2009-02-15-disney-black-princess-tiana_N.htm
Jones, J. L. (2003). Sista docta. In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor & M. H. Carver (Eds.), Voices made
flesh: Performing women’s autobiography (pp. 237–257). Madison, WI: University of
Wisconsin Press.
Jones, S. H. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. In N. K. Denzin &
Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 763–791).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jordan-Zachery, J. S. (2009). Black women, cultural images, and social policy. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Joseph, R. L. (2009). ‘‘Tyra Banks is fat’’: Reading (post-) racism and (post-) feminism in the
new millennium. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 26(3), 237–254.
King, D. K. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of a Black feminist
ideology. Signs, 14(1), 42–72.
Lerner, G. (Ed.). (1972). Black women in White America: A documentary history. New York,
NY: Vintage Books.
Lester, N. A. (2010). Disney’s The Princess and the Frog: The pride, the pressure, and the politics of being a first. Journal of American Culture, 33(4), 294–308.
Lorde, A. (1983). There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Interracial Books for Children Bulletin,
14(3–4), 9.
156
R. A. Griffin
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: Crossing
Press.
Lorde, A. (2009). Poet as teacher—Human as poet—Teacher as human. In R. P. Byrd, J. B.
Cole & B. Guy-Sheftall (Eds.), I am your sister: Collected and unpublished writings of
Audre Lorde (pp. 182–183). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lynch, S. (Director), & Sissel, S. (Producer). (2004). Chisholm ‘72: Unbought and unbossed
[Motion Picture]. New York, NY: Women Make Movies.
Madison, D. S. (1994). Story, history, and performance: Interpreting oral history through
Black performance traditions. Black Sacred Music, 8(2), 43–63.
Madison, D. S. (1995). Pretty Woman through the triple lens of Black feminist spectatorship.
In E. Bell, L. Haas & L. Sells (Eds.), From mouse to mermaid: The politics of film, gender,
and culture (pp. 224–235). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Madison, D. S. (2009). Crazy patriotism and angry (post)Black women. Communication and
Critical=Cultural Studies, 6(3), 321–326.
McGuire, D. L. (2010). At the dark end of the street: Black women, rape, and resistance—A new
history of the civil rights movement from Rosa Parks to the rise of Black power. New York,
NY: Knopf.
Mintz, S. (Ed.). (2009). African American voices: A documentary reader, 1619–1877 (4th ed.).
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Morrison, T. (Ed.). (1992). Race-ing justice, en-gendering power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence
Thomas, and the construction of social reality. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Neubeck, K. J., & Cazenave, N. A. (2001). Playing the race card against America’s poor.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Niles, M. N., & Gordon, N. S. (Eds.). (2011). Still searching for our mothers’ gardens: Experiences of new, tenure-track women of color at ‘‘majority’’ institutions. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America.
Ono, K. (1997). A letter=essay that I have been longing to write in my personal=academic
voice. Western Journal of Communication, 61(1), 114–125.
Orbe, M. P., Smith, D. C., Groscurth, C. R., & Crawley, R. L. (2010). Exhaling so that we can
catch our breath and sing: Reflections on issues inherent in publishing race-related communication research. Southern Communication Journal, 75(2), 184–194.
Patton, T. O. (2004). Reflections of a Black woman professor: Racism and sexism in academia. Howard Journal of Communications, 15, 185–200.
Patton, T. O. (2008). Jim Crow on fraternity row: A study of the phenomenon of Blackface in
the White southern fraternal order. Visual Communication Quarterly, 15, 150–168.
Pelias, R. J. (2000). The critical life. Communication Education, 49, 220–228.
Reynolds-Dobbs, W., Thomas, K., & Harrison, M. S. (2008). From mammy to superwoman:
Images that hinder Black women’s career development. Journal of Career Development,
35(2), 129–150.
Richardson, M. (Ed.). (1987). Maria W. Stewart, America’s first Black woman political writer.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Roberts, R., & Garrison, J. G. (1994). Heavy justice: The trial of Mike Tyson. Fayetteville,
AR: University of Arkansas Press.
Rosenfeld, M. (1992, February 13). After the verdict, the doubts; Black women show little
sympathy for Tyson’s accuser. Washington Post, p. D1.
Savage, C. (2010, October 19). Clarence Thomas’s wife asks Anita Hill for apology. New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20thomas.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Segal, A. (2009, July 23). Perry’s greatest accomplishment has nothing to do with business.
Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/07/23/bia.tyler.perry/index.
html
Black Feminist Autoethnography
157
Shange, N. (1975). For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf.
New York, NY: MacMillan.
Shields, D. C. (2000). Symbolic convergence and special communication theories: Sensing and
examining dis=enchantment with the theoretical robustness of critical autoethnography.
Communication Monographs, 67, 392–421.
Simms, G. (1995, March 26). Former champ quiet at chaotic homecoming: Crowd of 250
ready for comeback awaited Tyson outside Ohio estate. Dayton Daily News, p. 1D.
Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York, NY: Random House.
Smith, B. (Ed.). (2000). Home girls: A Black feminist anthology. New Brunswisk, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Smolowe, J. (1991, October 21). Sex, lies, and politics: He said, she said. Time Magazine.
Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974096,00.html
Steptoe, S. (1992, February 24). A damnable defense. Sports Illustrated, 76(7), 92.
Stewart, M. W. (1992). What if I am a woman?. In G. Lerner (Ed.), Black women in White
America: A documentary history (pp. 563–566). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
The profession. (2011). The Chronicle of Higher Education, Almanac Issue 2011–2012, 58(1),
p. 28.
Tillet, S. (2010, November 11). Black feminism, Tyler Perry style. The Root. Retrieved from
http://www.theroot.com/views/black-feminism-tyler-perry-style
Truth, S. (1992). I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for
the rights of colored women. In G. Lerner (Ed.), Black women in White America: A
documentary history (pp. 566–572). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Warren, J. T. (2001). Absence for whom? An autoethnography of White subjectivity. Cultural
Studies Critical Methodologies, 1(1), 36–49.
White, A. M. (1999). Talking feminist, talking Black: Micromobilization processes in a collective protest against rape. Gender and Society, 13(1), 77–100.
Yancy, G. (2008). Black bodies, White gazes: The continuing significance of race. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
I better understand the institutional violence and actual violence that Trans People must
endure and not always survive. Having watched the groundbreaking documentary (Disclosure)
and read the ‘Humans Rights Campaign’ article, I think I am well informed of these
predicaments. In 2020, Sam Feder’s film Disclosure, which he also directed and produced, made
its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (Bunting et al., 2022). The film explored how
Hollywood’s portrayal of transgender communities has shaped how these communities think and
feel about themselves (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). Nowadays, the media and government
have a monopoly on using the term “transgender,” which has come to define modern society.
Due to the representation’s increased visibility, Tran’s society must have gained a sense of
self-assurance.
Furthermore, transgender people have been the target of increased scrutiny and prejudice
due to this portrayal. Unfamiliar perspectives about Trans individuals have been influenced by
bias, leading to increased intolerance, hostility, and even acts of violence. Major Tran’s People in
Hollywood, including Laverne Cox, Susan Stryker, Mj Rodrigues, and many more, are featured
in this video, drawing clear parallels to Butler’s reading. Their insights into the film’s portrayal of
transgender communities are valuable in fostering a more accepting and inclusive culture.
Studies cited by Laverne Cox show that most Americans (about 80%) do not know any
transgender people (Bunting et al., 2022). Most of these folks learn about things through the
media. How transgender individuals are portrayed in the media becomes a powerful indicator of
how other cultures would react to them.
Characters that cross-dress to pass as another gender have been a common trope in cinema.
Hollywood’s portrayal of transgender persons has been divisive and unfavourable for four
generations. Birth of a Nation portrays itself as horribly prejudiced, while Judith of Bethulia
makes gender-nonconforming people into a joke in the story—both of which D. W. Griffith
invented. Hollywood films today perpetuate the stigma by depicting transgender people in a
negative light, either as violent or psychotic or sexually predatory or both (Human Rights
Campaign, 2020). In the past, the concept of transgender persons was foreign because the term
“Trans” did not yet exist to describe them. Hollywood’s depiction of trans people as social
outliers and potentially dangerous psychopaths has contributed to widespread prejudice against
the trans community. According to Jodie Foster’s character in the 1991 film Silence of the Lambs
(Bunting et al., 2022), “there is no relation in the literature between transsexualism and
violence.” The cast responds to these accusations to defend their portrayal of Tran in the film as a
psychotic killer who passes as a woman. The best feature of Sam Feder’s documentary is how the
filmmakers have synthesized all the various film depictions and how this has changed the lives
of transgender persons. The documentary The Brandon Teena story (1988), which investigates
the deaths of Teena Brandon, Philip Devine, and Lisa Lambert, contains a gripping scene that has
left an impression on me (Bunting et al., 2022). Phillip Devine, a black guy, was killed/erased in
this scenario to symbolize the paucity of black transgender people and the terrible stigma of
being LGBT for African Americans (Human Rights Campaign, 2020).
In this short synopsis, we learn that the film addresses the representation of transgender
guys. Although transmen and transwomen are statistically similar, transwomen are far more
frequently shown in the media than transmen (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). The
acceptability of transgender people is severely hampered, resulting in devastating consequences
for trans communities (Bunting et al., 2022). The picture is based on a scenario from the show
Jeff Springer, which had a transgender male host who was black and was the subject of intense
scrutiny and skepticism because of his gender. The film’s disclosure is fascinating documentation
that sheds new light on how transgender people are portrayed in the media. Making movies like
this is critical for breaking gender stereotypes (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). Documents of
this nature offer novel insights into the meaning of gender inequality, paving the way for broader
social acceptance of non-binary and transgender communities.