First coined as “Black Girls are Magic” by Cashawn Thompson, the slogan #BlackGirlMagic flooded social media less than a year after Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created #BlackLivesMatter in 2013.
In this week, we approach #BlackGirlMagic as a cross-section of Black feminist pedagogies, Black girlhood, and fugitive learning. We will challenge and move beyond the simplistic frames that often positioned (and thereby dismissed) #BlackGirlMagic (BGM) as merely a kind of beauty and visibility politics that ultimately failed for only imagining “magical interventions” against racialized/sexualized violence. After the time we spent with Black speculative YA fiction, we should all understand that the "magic" of a Black speculative imagination is never fanciful or fruitless anyway.
In this week, we approach #BlackGirlMagic as a cross-section of Black feminist pedagogies, Black girlhood, and fugitive learning. We will challenge and move beyond the simplistic frames that often positioned (and thereby dismissed) #BlackGirlMagic (BGM) as merely a kind of beauty and visibility politics that ultimately failed for only imagining “magical interventions” against racialized/sexualized violence. After the time we spent with Black speculative YA fiction, we should all understand that the "magic" of a Black speculative imagination is never fanciful or fruitless anyway.
Issues To Familiarize Yourself with/ Watch as Much as You Like:
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This week embraces a wide range of Black feminist fugitive practices for education and rhetoric:
While research about Black girls, Black womanist/feminist teachers, and Black women teachers is not new to the 21st century, the hashtag, #BlackGirlMagic, catalyzed new attention, offering a unique spotlight for the 21st century that scholars refuse to ever dim.
*See Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human. Duke University Press, 2014.
- Political challenges to Black girls’ criminalization via schooling and policing regimes, like the notable work of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s #SayHerName and Monique Morris’s Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools;
- Hip Hop feminist studies that question traditionalist notions of white feminisms and "third-wave" feminisms;
- Research on Black girl literacies and Black feminist pedagogies as new categories of analysis for the meaning of reading, writing, and performance in and out of schools;
- Legacies of protest and critical pedagogies of Black women teachers that are constantly erased in educational histories.
While research about Black girls, Black womanist/feminist teachers, and Black women teachers is not new to the 21st century, the hashtag, #BlackGirlMagic, catalyzed new attention, offering a unique spotlight for the 21st century that scholars refuse to ever dim.
*See Weheliye, Alexander G. Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human. Duke University Press, 2014.
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What We're Reading...
There is no, single MANDATORY reading. For this week, chose any two readings from the two lists below. Choose one text from List A and one text from List B. For a great educational overview, you might consider: “Centering Black Girls’ Literacies: A Review of Literature on the Multiple Ways of Knowing of Black Girls” by Gholnecsar E. Muhammad and Marcelle Haddix in List B. You might also watch the documentary (1-hour) at the left in place of one of your two required readings (note: the sound goes out for about 3 minutes at the beginning). |
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List A. Pedagogies & Methodologies
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List B. Literacies & Language
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Our Black |
The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the
Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop by Kyra Gaunt Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood by Ruth Nicole Brown Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women by Jackie Royster A Voice from the South by Anna Julia Cooper |
