Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag: Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition PDF
Preview Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag: Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition
BLACK GIRL MAGIC BEYOND THE HASHTAG THE FEMINIST WIRE BOOKS Connecting Feminisms, Race, and Social Justice SERIES EDITORS Monica J. Casper, Tamura A. Lomax, and Darnell L. Moore EDITORIAL BOARD Brittney Cooper, Aimee Cox, Keri Day, Suzanne Dovi, Stephanie Gilmore, Kiese Laymon, David J. Leonard, Heidi R. Lewis, Nakisha Lewis, Adela C. Licona, Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., Joseph Osmundson, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Stephanie Troutman, Heather M. Turcotte ALSO IN THE FEMINIST WIRE BOOKS The Chicana Motherwork Anthology, edited by Cecilia Caballero, Yvette Martinez-Vu, Judith C. Pérez- Torres, Michelle Téllez, and Christine Vega Them Goon Rules: Fugitive Essays on Radical Black Feminism, by Marquis Bey B L A C K G I R L M A G I C B E Y O N D T H E H A S H TA G Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition EDITED BY JULIA S. JORDAN-ZACHERY DUCHESS HARRIS AND Foreword by Janell Hobson Afterword by Tammy Owens The University of Arizona Press www .uapress .arizona .edu © 2019 by The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published 2019 ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8165- 3953- 6 (paper) Cover design by Leigh McDonald Cover art: Archetype of a 5 Star by Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Rubell Family Collection, courtesy of Kravets Wehby Gallery Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data are available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). To the Black women who worked tirelessly for me to experience “magic,” thank you. To my daughter, Makeen, for pushing me to think critically, thanks. —JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY For my favorite Black girl: Avi Noelle Thomas —DUCHESS HARRIS CONTENTS Foreword ix JANELL HOBSON Acknowledgments xv Introduction. We Are Magic AND We Are Real: Exploring the Politics of Black Femmes, Girls, and Women’s Self- Articulation 3 JULIA S. JORDAN- ZACHERY AND DUCHESS HARRIS 1. Movement Makers: A Historical Analysis of Black Women’s Magic in Social Movement Formation 41 RASHIDA L. HARRISON 2. “I Can Only Do Me”: African American, Caribbean American, and West African Girls’ Transnational Nature of Self- Articulation 60 LECONTÉ J. DILL, SHAVAUN S. SUTTON, BIANCA RIVERA, AND ABENA AMORY- POWELL viii Contents 3. Identity in Formation: Black Girl Critical Literacies in Independent Schools 80 CHARLOTTE E. JACOBS 4. What We Know and How We Know It? Defining Black Girlhood Spirituality 105 PORSHÉ R. GARNER 5. Conjuring Ghosts: Black Girlhood Hauntings and Speculative Performances of Reappearances 126 JESSICA L. ROBINSON 6. What Does #BlackGirlMagic Look Like? The Aesthetics of Black Women’s Afropunk Citizenship 147 MARLO D. DAVID 7. Daughter Mother: An Intergenerational Conversation on the Meaning of #BlackGirlMagic 170 MAKEEN J. ZACHERY AND JULIA S. JORDAN-ZACHERY Afterword: BlackGirlMagic Is Real 184 TAMMY OWENS Contributors 187 Index 193 FOREWORD Janell Hobson One would think the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic belongs to a commu- nity of Black women and girls. That is until both Essence magazine and Beverly Bond’s Black Girls Rock! organization entered a trade- mark dispute for copyright ownership over the slogan in 2017. Some- how, CaShawn Thompson— credited with the slogan “Black Girls are Magic,” which became a T-s hirt logo that she designed— disappeared from the conversation, even though the viral hashtag #BlackGirl- Magic arrived on the scene of Black Twitter soon after Thompson’s logo and within the year of the creation of #BlackLivesMatter in 2013, which was first coined by three Black women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. We may well debate just who “owns” the #BlackGirlMagic expres- sion— as a shorthand description for any Black woman stylishly pos- ing for Instagram selfies or fabulously dominating her profession if she happens to be a public figure in entertainment, sports, politics, activism, or the academy— but there is no doubt that it has entered the larger public domain empowering Black women and girls. Hashtag or trademark, personal or collective expression, #BlackGirlMagic is the articulation of the resolve and persistence of Black women and
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