Patricia Hill-Collins

Question 1

• She emphasizes the importance of considering how factors such as race,
  gender, class, sexuality, and more intersect to shape individuals’
  experiences of privilege and oppression.
• Discusses how marginalized groups may experience epistemological
  injustice, which occurs when their knowledge and experiences are
  invalidated or excluded from mainstream discourse.
• Advocates for the production of emancipatory knowledge, which is
  knowledge that empowers marginalized groups to challenge and resist
  oppression. Emancipatory knowledge is not just about understanding the
  world but also about changing it.

Answer 1

Key arguments of Collins

Question 2

• The interconnected nature of social identities and systems of oppression. It
  emphasizes that factors such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and more intersect
  and interact to shape individuals’ experiences and social positions.

Answer 2

Intersectionality

Question 3

• Multiple systems of power (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc.)
  intersect and create unique forms of oppression for individuals.

Answer 3

Matrix of Domination

Question 4

• A distinct body of knowledge grounded in the lived experiences of Black women
  that is both a critical social theory and a form of activism.

Answer 4

Black Feminist Thought

Question 5

1. Alternative epistemologies are built upon lived experience, not upon an
   objectified position.
2. Use of dialogue (dialogical knowledge) rather than adversarial debate.
3. All knowledge is intrinsically value-laden and should thus be tested by
   the presence of empathy and compassion.
4. Requires personal accountability.

Answer 5

Four Key Tenets of Black Feminist Thought
BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT

Question 6

• Two exceptionally powerful and prevalent systems of oppression
  come together: race and gender.
• The American contradiction
• Ideal cultural values about equality juxtaposed with the obvious
  inequalities of gender and race.
• “U.S. Black women encounter societal practices that restrict us
  to inferior housing, neighborhoods, schools, jobs, and public
  treatment and hide this differential consideration behind an
  array of common beliefs about Black women’s intelligence, work
  habits, and sexuality.” (Hill-Collins 2000)

Answer 6

1. Black women are located at an intersection of oppressions
   BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT

Question 7

• Through historical and contemporary struggles, Black women have developed a
  unique form of knowledge that challenges systemic oppression.
• Individual Black women neither have identical experiences nor interpret experiences
  in a similar fashion.
• Many may deconstruct the conceptual apparatus of the dominant group.
• Jaminica, a 14-year-old Black girl, describes her strategies: “Unless you want
  to get into a big activist battle, you accept the stereotypes given to you and
  just try and reshape them along the way. So in a way, this gives me a lot of
  freedom. I can’t be looked at any worse in society than I already am—black
  and female is pretty high on the list of things not to be”
• Other women may internalize the negative stereotypes about them.
• Varying ethnic and citizenship statuses within the U.S. nation-state as well also
  shape differences among Black women in the United States.

Answer 7

2. Black women’s collective wisdom
   BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT

Question 8

• Black feminist thought is both a critical social theory and a form of
  activism.
• The goal is to reframe forms of oppression with themes from Black
  Women’s standpoint.
• Two interrelated levels of knowledge: knowledge from the Black
  feminist scholar and the taken for granted knowledge shared by all
  Black women.
• “One key task for Black women intellectuals is asking the right
  questions and investigating all dimensions of a Black women’s
  standpoint with African-American women

Answer 8

3. Black feminist practice and black feminist thought
   BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT