Summary Of Patricia Hill Collins 'Black Feminist Thought'

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In her seminal text, Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins codifies a vast literature on Black feminist thought to develop a coherent social theory. Collins draws from not only social scientific research, but literature, poetry, music and oral history. She highlights the existing exclusion and denial of intersection social identities and intersecting/overlapping systems and forms of domination experienced by sub-populations like Black women in America. Bringing together White myopia and Male myopia, the perspective of the Black feminist highlights that Black women are “set undeniably apart because of race and sex with a unique set of challenges” (Cleage 1993 as cited in Collins 2008). Like the work of Du Bois, Black feminist thought …show more content…

One cannot assume that experiences and conditions of inequality of a particular set of individuals are applicable across geographic, social, political, or economics boundaries and contexts.
3) As knowledge and awareness is generated regarding different features of inequality, those subjected to it and those in relation to oppressed populations may engage with their contexts differently and spur social change. Thus, understandings of inequality must remain dynamic and be willing to let go of long-held assumptions regarding certain groups or behaviors.
4) One must question who is permitted to make observations, claims, and generalizations about inequality (in other words, who is allowed to study inequality?). Black feminist thought notes that all Black women can serve as intellectual leaders in the discipline, regardless of educational or technical training to serve as traditional intellectuals in the academy. Given the tendency to draw from our own norms as sociologists, it is important to concede that other, non-traditional thinkers and researchers, including those who may not immediately identify themselves as such, may have important contributions to make to the study, in particular, helping to disrupt the role of norms and

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