This volume is so significant an addition to Black feminist theorizing that any future research on Black feminism and Black women's political activism will have to reference its contents. While the focus of much of the volume is on politics and the discipline of political science, the authors’ collective reach encompasses other social sciences and in one instance, literary activism.
Intersectionality is one of the most important contributions Black women academicians and legal scholars have made to understanding the complexity of oppression and exploitation. This volume maps the ways in which the theorizing has evolved, from terms such as “double jeopardy,” “triple jeopardy,” “simultaneity of oppressions,” to types of structural intersectionalities and representation. Recent contributions are referenced throughout the volume, such as “intersectional invisibility” put forward by Devon Carbado (Douglas, p. 61). Every chapter in the volume explicitly addresses and demonstrates the value and utility of approaching research from an intersectional perspective.
Intersectionality is variously described by the authors as being a weapon of resistance, a dialectical epistemology, a framework, and a methodology. Intersectional analyses can perform multiple functions, allowing researchers to make fine-grained distinctions within and between groups in society, disentangle and identify specific populations whose needs are not being met, and obtain a fuller understanding of the formation and execution of public policy. Using intersectionality as a framework and a methodology, the authors examine Black women's thought and activism in the United States and the African Diaspora and their many insights explain cross-cutting themes and strategies.
The volume has four sections, with the first section devoted to the theory and significance of intersectionality in political science and other social sciences. Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd examines academic publications from economics, history, political science, and sociology from 1970 to 2003 on Black women and documents statistically an appalling lack of published research on the topic. She considers reasons for this paucity and queries the institutional roles performed by academic disciplines in maintaining the status quo. Julia S. Jordan-Zackery examines how intersectionality has moved from its original focus to becoming a mainstream theory used by academics to frame their research while ignoring Black women. She draws a parallel between this phenomenon and the movie The Help. In both cases, she states, “…Black women are used to advance others’ dreams and desires … while often remaining in the shadows. Intersectionality research, similarly to The Help, appears to give a nod to the voices of Black women; however, … Black women's voices are not necessarily heard” (p. 31).
Section Two's focus is on public policy, with a chapter by Jenny Douglas on Black women's health in the UK and their unequal health outcomes, partly a result of how little they are studied by being subsumed into other populations. Keesha M. Middlemass investigates the unique challenges confronting Black women felons reentering society, demonstrating how intersectionality creates totalizing forms of marginalization, and Julia S. Jordan-Zackery focuses on Black AID orphans. Section Three is devoted to African Diasporan women: K. Melchor Quick Hall writes on Garifuna women in Honduras who are African-descended and indigenous and struggling to maintain their culture and land ownership. Maziki Thame analyzes the rise to power by Portia Simpson-Miller, the first woman prime minister in Jamaica to emerge from the working classes providing the reader with an analysis of Simpson-Miller's political opposition, and the political strategies she utilized to overcome sexism and classism. Keisha N. Blain's chapter examines the voices of nationalist Black women retrieved by her content analysis of their writings in the New Negro World newspaper between 1940 and 1944 where they articulated their concerns on global racial justice.
Section Four is devoted to literature, social movements, and representation. Judylyn S. Ryan examines the political work accomplished by Toni Morrison by examining four of her narrative strategies. Morrison's young adult fiction and her novel A Mercy are mined to explore her political project of strengthening democracy. Grace E. Howard's chapter on Michelle Obama is an example of how intersectional analysts can disagree. She examines Obama's Let's Move anti-obesity campaign and her book American Grown as a form of respectability politics connected to a deracialization strategy. The campaign allowed Obama to promote laudable goals but also to distance herself from those who do not have access to fresh food, playgrounds, and all the accoutrements needed for a healthy lifestyle. Obama, as a member of the elite, proposed solutions which fell far short of structural change. Ryan takes issue with intersectional political scientists who have asserted that Obama's choices while in the White House constituted in of themselves a form of resistance. The final chapter by Tonya M. Williams focuses on Black women's activism in reproductive health care at a time of health care reform. She conducts interviews and participant-observation research to examine how Black women leaders of a variety of reproductive social justice organizations represented the interests of their constituencies, the obstacles they encountered, and the impact of their representational work.
There is an urgency in the tone of the essays in this volume. Collectively, they constitute an intervention seeking to reclaim the major contributions of Black women's theoretical work, and assert the centrality of Black women as research subjects and agents of community development and democratic change. Given the significance of intersectionality in every chapter it is a surprise that the word is not included in the title. This volume demonstrates the necessity for more such research and points to ways to do so, with the book's excellent bibliographies, interdisciplinary approaches, and varied methodologies.
