Feminista JonesBesprekingen

Fantastic book on intersectionality and a recent history of social media’s role in activism (focusing on Twitter and blogs). Highly recommend!

I'm not sure how I want to rate this book. It's always hard when a book doesn't turn out to be what you expect, not bad but not what you picked it up for. I expected to read about modern Black feminists and I did, but not as much as I'd hoped and expected. I'd say this book is 50% memoir and of the remaining 50%, half of that is about Black women leading the way in making Twitter a viable and vibrant digital space and half is about Black feminism in that space. All of which is in the title, but I didn't pick the book up expecting only a quarter of it to be directly about Black feminists.

Having said all of that, I thought the book was interesting. I am a white woman and a feminist. I try very hard to be aware of my privilege and avoid being a White Feminist. But privilege has an insidious way of being invisible until something is pointed out to you. So, in this way, I thought the book useful, chapter 10 (Mammy 2.0) especially.

All in all, not a bad read just not the one I was looking for.

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review from the publisher.)

DNF at 42%.

"Imagine if Audre Lorde had access to Twitter in the 1970s and could share her now-famous and revered quotations in real time—what might that have done for the Black feminist movement of the time? If Angela Davis’s speeches of the 1970s could be broadcast via Periscope and seen by tens of thousands a mere forty-eight hours after she delivered them? Imagine if Marsha P. Johnson could have shared video from the Stonewall Riots the way Johnetta Elzie shared videos from Ferguson. Where might Black women be today, in our fight for equality and liberation, if these iconic thought leaders, artists, and activists were influencers in the way we understand them to be in our time?"

"Interestingly enough, I changed the name of my site to FeministaJones.com riiight before Melissa Harris-Perry featured my video about mental health on her weekend MSNBC news, culture, and politics show. Imagine her having to say, “Feminista Jones, who blogs at Knob-Slobbing Feminism,” on air."

Initially I was psyched to win a copy of Reclaiming Our Space through Library Thing's Early reviewers program; I've been following the author on twitter for some time and her thoughts on race, class, gender, and sexuality are both thought-provoking and highly entertaining. But, by the time a copy finally arrived via snail mail, life had gotten in the way and it got pushed to the bottom of my TBR pile. I finally picked it up a year later, not so much because I wanted to read it - things have been tough lately and escapism is the name of the lit game, at least for me - but rather because I felt obligated to give it a try.

Reclaiming Our Space is one part history lesson, one part manifesto, illuminating the many ways in which Black women - activists, academics, professionals, influencers, artists, and politicians - have utilized the internet (particularly twitter) to amplify their voices, too often minimized, silenced, and ignored pre-digital age. While many people like to dismiss the internet as not "real," Jones shows how hashtag campaigns like #SayHerName, #BringBackOurGirls, #MeuPrimeiroAssedio (“My first harassment”), #DisabledAndCute, #DisabilitySoWhite, #GirlsLikeUs, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, #BlackGirlsAre Magic, #PrettyPeriod, #WhyIStayed, #RapeCultureIsWhen, and #YouOKSis have effected changed IRL. She also details how Black women pioneered tricks like threading tweets and using reaction GIFs to further discourse, and launched influencer gigs into steady streams of revenue.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF Reclaiming Our Space - it took me most of a month to read the first half, and I just don't have anything left in me. I need a shot of feminist escapist fiction, stat. This isn't to suggest that Reclaiming Our Space is a bad read, just not the right one for me right now. I'm going to stick a pin in it and hopefully return at a later date. I'm especially intrigued by Chapter 11, at least in part because Jones references the Combahee River Collective early in the book, and I've love to learn more.

Table of Contents
--------------

INTRODUCTION
It All Started When . . .

CHAPTER 1
#BlackFeminism 101

CHAPTER 2
#BlackFeminism 102

CHAPTER 3
Thread!

CHAPTER 4
The Influencers

CHAPTER 5
Talk Like Sex

CHAPTER 6
Black Girls Are Magic

CHAPTER 7
Twenty-First-Century Negro Bedwenches

CHAPTER 8
Black Mamas Matter

CHAPTER 9
“I’ve Always Been Good to You People!”

CHAPTER 10
Mammy 2.0: Black Women Will Not Save You, So Stop Asking

CHAPTER 11
Combahee Lives

Acknowledgments
Notes

In this book, author, social worker, and activist Feminista Jones gives the reader a much-needed comprehensive look at Black feminism in the age of social media. Jones comes at this topic from her personal experience as a queer Black woman who has been extremely influential in the worlds of Twitter, blogging, and online communication. Much of the book reads as a memoir focused on her personal interactions and experiences, and Jones enriches the narrative by pulling together historical perspectives and raising up the voices of other women and feminists in her circles, including a handful of interviews sprinkled throughout the book. Her historic perspective is especially valuable in her discussions of intersectionality and activism, including the past and ongoing failures of White feminism to include Black voices as well as the dismissal of Black feminism by the civil rights movement. Of particular interest is her examination of Black Twitter and how the ways that Black women have used this platform to share their experiences and feelings, connect with one another, push the functionality of the platform forward (through hashtags, threads, and reaction gifs), and (all too often) fight off the trolls and watch their creations be co-opted and monetized. Some chapters are stronger than others, but this is a compelling read overall and a great resource for folks who need an overview of Black feminism in general, and a primer on what is happening in the on-line world of Black feminism today.

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

This collection of essays but prominent black feminist Feminista Jones provides a wide-ranged summary of black feminism. It spans from the abolitionist roots of the Seneca Falls Convention to modern activism taking place on Twitter, told through the lens of Jones' own experiences and her activism.

I found the book a good balance of detail-oriented reporting and eloquent explanations of things like twitter culture and call-and-response style communication. The type of information provided suggests Jones assumes a white probably liberal or feminist-leaning audience and both informs and challenges them. As such I consider this a excellent introduction to black feminism and an encouragement to seek out more WOC's work.

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing EarlyReviewers program.

Social media has been/is an excellent place for the meeting of minds for Black Feminists, and for people who want to hear what they have to say. Although still struggling with the problem of how to deal with trolls (from rude to violent) on the internet, this space allows people from a variety of backgrounds to engage on the "conversation of feminism". Topics and ideas that used to be discussed only in academia are being shared widely, and now contributed to by people who aren't academics. This is having a profound effect. This books is both a history and a "where things stand now" for social media.

Jones takes the opportunity to make sure the reader learns about Black Feminist thought, both from history and currently. I particularly valued these parts of the book, and the discussions around them. I was introduced to some new people I want to hear more from, and I marked a couple chapters that will take further thought, and that I want to discuss in detail with my friends. Specifically: how do we, as white people, learn how to be truly intersectional? How do we "follow/listen to Black women" without objectifying them (again) and expecting their (free) labor will save us from scary things in our political world? She well describes these and other issues, along with the frustrations of the Black women who are subject to the unreasonable expectations.

At first I was concerned that since I am not on Twitter, I would not connect well with the book, but she explains it well enough for people who have at least a basic knowledge of how it works. I am glad to have read this book.½

The book covers the influence Black women have had over politics, entertainment, and media. She calls back to the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black women who met in the 1970s to push forward a progressive feminist agenda, because they knew if they would not speak for Black women, no one would. Jones argues that we are in a new era of such a collective, by boosting TV ratings via live-tweeting a show, or creating open and intersectional spaces both on and offline to talk about issues today. Jones shows how social media has made progress possible and will only continue to bring people together in the future.
If you have been following Feminista Jones’ work online then you will be well-pleased with this book. Her voice is clear and her ideas are those that everyone should be listening to. While this is a book that celebrates Black women, they are not the only audience who will benefit from this book. White people in particular should read this and learn from the experiences of Black women, and learn how to be more intersectional in their own feminism. Jones references so many influential feminists throughout history, that one could gather a very good reading list from the references section of the book.

Disclaimer: I received a free advance review copy from a LibraryThing giveaway.

I requested this because I know I have a lot to learn. I might not be part of the intended audience, but I hope I can still learn by actively listening to what black feminists have to say. It is not an easy book to read, honestly, because it makes you think about your behaviors and realize that some things you maybe thought were helpful or just innocuous aren't. There's a lot to learn here.

The one negative for me (giving it 4 stars instead of 5) is that the title implies that it's going to be about more than one person (black feminists), but it's largely about the author. Don't get me wrong, she does cover what a lot of other black feminists think and do, but there's no mistaking that a big chunk of this book is her memoir thus far. It would have made more sense to me to separate memoir and "state of the movement" into two sections, if not two separate books.

Anyone would benefit from reading this, even if you think you're so woke that you never do anything remotely racist. You almost certainly do without realizing it because a lot of it is baked into our societal structure. Reading this book can help you notice some of them.