ABSTRACT
Black feminist discourse has historically upheld cultural memory as a fundamental category of epistemological importance that shapes African American women’s expressive vernacular arts (Muhammad & Haddix, 2016; Richardson, 2002). Following in the tradition of countless Black women intellectual elders, I often turn to written expression to sharpen my ontological understanding of self in relation to the world around me. As Richardson (2013) asserted, “African American literacies include vernacular survival arts and cultural productions that carve out free spaces in oppressive locations” (p. 329). Hence, I have put pen to paper to celebrate love, sing Black girl songs, and salute the sun. To be candid, I also write to reckon with the horrifying truths and uneasy certainties tied to my subordination within intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender (Collins, 2000). A common thread through much of my writing is the dialectic of African American women’s subjugation and varied resistance strategies. To this end, written expression is a critical site of (re) humanization, which functions as my darkness and my peace.
