ABSTRACT
Black women who are engaged in reclaiming and constructing Black women’s knowledges often point to the politics of suppression that affect their projects. Much contemporary US Black feminist thought reflects Black women’s increasing willingness to oppose gender inequality within Black civil society. Developing Black feminist thought also involves searching for its expression in alternative institutional locations and among women who are not commonly perceived as intellectuals. For African-American women, critical social theory encompasses bodies of knowledge and sets of institutional practices that actively grapple with the central questions facing US Black women as a collectivity. Empowerment remains an illusive construct and developing a Black feminist politics of empowerment requires specifying the domains of power that constrain Black women, as well as how such domination can be resisted. Reclaiming Black feminist intellectual traditions involves much more than developing Black feminist analyses using standard epistemological criteria.
