Black Feminism

What is bffs?

I have hundreds of pages, single spaced
in my mind to answer that question.
But right now I will give you the 3 min or so version.

First, and briefly, What is Black Feminism?

To oversimplify it, Black feminism is a politic it’s an approach to life that centers the liberation of all people, especially the most marginalized. It draws from the legacy of those who first identified as Black feminists and lifts up the insights and potential of leadership from those who live and learn from their experience of interlocking oppression.

To be clear, Black feminism is not a designation for people who are embodied as (or who are assigned the identities of) both Black and female. No!

It is a way of life and a justice commitment that has specific tenets and teachers.

That’s where we get groundbreaking work, including the Combahee River Collective statement that talks about:

1) Interlocking oppressions, intersectionality;
2) Where knowledge comes from and how it’s valued, epistemology;
3) Justice as an active practice
and so much more

Second, Why media? What kind of media?

Rooted in Black feminism and the work of Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs, I answered the call to “create the world anew”.  With that call embedded in my heart, I discovered what many folk have— that our stories make up our world. So we are all called to tell more expansive stories.

• in music, film and all forms of media but also
• in our language, for example:
• release our violent language: shooting vs filming, shot vs frame… 
  we can acknowledge that the technology for motion picture cameras comes from gun manufacturing, we can acknowledge the Orisa Ogun and that metaphysical something about the connection between our drive (as humans) to evolve being connected with our drive to protect (offensively or defensively) ourselves. we can acknowledge all that while still having a new story, a new story through language.
  
• affirmative and afformative methods of communication grounded in emotional intelligence.

• more expansive stories through our relationships;
• through how we share, spend and move money.
   

The story can be expanded through media: yes, that’s inspiration. yes, that’s sparking a new possibility, but the story has to also be expanded through our living, our actions. That’s why bffs preaches practice and teaches practices and hosts spaces for practice

We create something new by practicing something new AND since we don’t know how to fully actualize freedom for all (though our freedom is inherent) or else we would be doing it collectively already, we practice, pretend, tell stories to normalize our own expansion, growth and transformation. We use media (and art) because it is the vehicle for communication and energy transfer.

Third and finally, What is School for?

School is an intimate space, a space where we practice non-judgment and grace; a space where learning is the whole point and people are not punished for what they don’t know even if they NEVER know, never  get to internalize some of these lessons instead we nurture them in the ways and means of their particular genius.

We hold to and expand our boundaries and blessings. We hold rigorous boundaries to set a standard for safe enough space (amen June Jordan, poetry for the people, "safe enough") and we facilitate decadent blessings to allow expansion to be an embodied and ecstatic experience. Just as much as it is practical and political, it can be embodied and ecstatic.

This SCHOOL! where we lean into the truth of life as poetry, and not as some luxury that only certain people have access to but critical to what WE mean when we say survival. Our survival comes because we learn to expand what it means which includes these rigorous boundaries that create infinite space for safety and these decadent blessings that create infinite opportunities for our individual and collective bliss.

"We can impose beauty on our future". (Lorraine Hansberry) A Black feminist approach to media making as nergetic work and spiritual practice is how we do it. How do YOU impose beauty on our future!

collage by Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs