Black Feminism Patricia Hill Collins Term Paper

Solidarity created via black feminist discourse is empowering. The acknowledgment of a collective black female identity can lead African-American women to value rather than shun their identities and to embrace the fullness of their culture. Psychological empowerment is a precursor to economic and political empowerment. Empowerment ultimately does not depend on conformity to the predominant social institutions. Another reason why it is important to sustain black feminist thought is that this alternative discourse is the only means by which the voices of the oppressed may be heard. In the same way that empowerment means not having to participate in or condone white male institutions, black feminist ideology defines its own methodological tools. Those tools cannot rely on scholastic sources or the scientific method. A European-masculinist academic institution imposes positivism on all discourse. This shuts down valid voices offering personal opinion, immediate experience, narrative, and other means by which black women gather knowledge. Black females should not be using the tools of the oppressor to give voice to the oppressed.

Patricia Hill Collins explains what black feminist thought is, how it is socially constructed, and why it is important to academic integrity. Collins describes the methods that black feminist scholars use to explore the issues important to African-American women. The author also describes the methods by which ordinary black women communicate the issues that are meaningful to them. The crux of Collins' argument is that black feminist discourse is substantially different from mainstream academic discourse. While the two can coexist within academic institutions, it is important to define the experiences of oppressed populations using the tools, ideas, and values meaningful to that population.

I. What is black feminist thought?

1. experiences of pol and econ status are unique

2. this creates a "consciousness" -- shared body of experiences, shared means of reflecting on those experiences (hence shared way of reacting)

3. The dominant and subordinate positions are fundamentally difft -- don't impose a reality on the oppressed

Shared elements - Afrocentric Feminist epistomology

-- oppression (slavery etc.)

-- Afro values, family, culture

-- not same as mainstream fem bc black

Methods

-- knowledge v wisdom

-- methods = verbal, emph on storytelling, narratives, empathy, knowing, ethic of caring, personal bio and concrete experience is valid

"flawed consciousness of their own subordination," (223)

"self-defined standpoint of their own oppression" (223)

diff daily experiences, "diff world" (223) dff "material positions" wisdom from the ordinary (non-scholar) as well as scholar intersection race, class, gender, power

II. Obstacles to the soc construction of black fem thought resistance to domination = actively suppressed bad for status quo

**expression, articulation are difficult -- oppressed control ideological structures, lack of access to resources used to express (commn tools)

Challenges

-- tenuous status in academia

-- Euro/masc is criteria for scholarship

-- marginalize, or absorb the voices in academia

irony/paradox for black fem in academia because removed from the everyday-- everyday v. ivory tower/specialized knowledge = they are interdependent

Impact of Eurocentric Masculinist process:

-- if community of experts is white males then no alt voices are valid

-- positivism (scientific method etc.) automatically excludes the significance of voices

-- assume and presume inferiority

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