Conclusion “When and Where I Enter”: Gender and Black Feminist Praxis in the Study and Interpretation of Black Politics

Abstract

I began this book by recounting my own entry point into the subjects that I discuss herein—the relationship between White and Black nationalisms, the importance of gender to contemporary nationalist politics, and the role of political narratives in shaping political dis;course and public policy. I recounted how my initial concerns about depictions of Black families and welfare—particularly representations of Black women receiving welfare—confronted me with the need to understand political narratives. I was drawn to how a particular set of assumptions about the decline of the Black family, what I have referred to as the BCPP, became a pervasive, hegemonic metanarrative for understanding Black marginalization. These basic assumptions include: that Blacks have a sick or deformed culture that causes them to not have stable, two-parent families; that Black women who rebel against what are deemed proper female roles and traits are the root cause of what is wrong with Black families; that Black men are endangered, both through racism and through being undermined by Black women; and that Black people’s cultural depravity is the source of a host of problems, including poverty itself.