THEME 3
“How We Get Free”: Black Feminist Rhetorics as a Legacy of Abolitionism
In this class, we are making an earnest attempt to see and make historical connections without using the western, linear framework that says: we started here, learned a lot, improved, and now we are chronologically someplace completely different. This just doesn’t work for African American rhetoric, especially when we can trace daily expressions back centuries. We must chronicle time differently. We want to decolonize time so that we see the past as spaces that built out the logic in which we now live, not just a series of regrettable and long-gone mistakes that we have departed.
To account for temporality (a fancy word for time), we will use Jackie Jones Royster’s notion of rhetorical continuities, a framework she used in Traces of a Stream to make sense of the ways that Black women rhetors like Maria Stewart and June Jordan are writing in similar ways, for similar purposes, even though they lived 100 years apart.
We will begin Black feminist rhetorical study with Maria Stewart who you will meet in this theme. If you haven’t heard her name, you need to remember this key fact: the first time ANY woman in the United States gave a public address, the words and embodiment came from a Black woman--- Maria Stewart (pronounced Mariah). In today’s parlance, we would call her THE G.O.A.T. Stewart’s topic and focus? The abolition of slavery, Black women's freedom, and Black unity. Black women’s rhetoric and Black feminist rhetoric therefore begins with abolition so our job in this theme is to flesh out Black feminist rhetoric as the embodiment of abolition.
We will begin with Maria Stewart’s speeches and then move Black women from enslavement to emancipation very quickly. This move will happen at the site of music--- specifically the Blues where we will spend time with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and move towards Rock N’ Roll with Rosetta Tharpe. If you haven’t heard these names, you need to remember this key fact: the first time ANY woman in the United States publicly addressed sexual violence and intimate partner violence, the words and embodiment came from Black queer women--- the Blueswomen. Today, movements like Tarana Burke’s #MeToo and #MuteRKelly have Black women ancestors that go 100 years back. Let’s do some real justice to these kinds of rhetorical continuities in this theme.
To account for temporality (a fancy word for time), we will use Jackie Jones Royster’s notion of rhetorical continuities, a framework she used in Traces of a Stream to make sense of the ways that Black women rhetors like Maria Stewart and June Jordan are writing in similar ways, for similar purposes, even though they lived 100 years apart.
We will begin Black feminist rhetorical study with Maria Stewart who you will meet in this theme. If you haven’t heard her name, you need to remember this key fact: the first time ANY woman in the United States gave a public address, the words and embodiment came from a Black woman--- Maria Stewart (pronounced Mariah). In today’s parlance, we would call her THE G.O.A.T. Stewart’s topic and focus? The abolition of slavery, Black women's freedom, and Black unity. Black women’s rhetoric and Black feminist rhetoric therefore begins with abolition so our job in this theme is to flesh out Black feminist rhetoric as the embodiment of abolition.
We will begin with Maria Stewart’s speeches and then move Black women from enslavement to emancipation very quickly. This move will happen at the site of music--- specifically the Blues where we will spend time with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and move towards Rock N’ Roll with Rosetta Tharpe. If you haven’t heard these names, you need to remember this key fact: the first time ANY woman in the United States publicly addressed sexual violence and intimate partner violence, the words and embodiment came from Black queer women--- the Blueswomen. Today, movements like Tarana Burke’s #MeToo and #MuteRKelly have Black women ancestors that go 100 years back. Let’s do some real justice to these kinds of rhetorical continuities in this theme.
The components of theme 3:
