But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.įar too often, Black women’s anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy.
So what if it’s true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. Michael Eric Dyson: “ Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today.and she will make you laugh out loud.” I was waiting and she has come in Brittney Cooper.” Melissa Harris Perry: “I was waiting for an author who wouldn’t forget, ignore, or erase us black girls. Joy Reid, Cosmopolitan: "A dissertation on black women’s pain and possibility."ĭamon Young: "Like watching the world’s best Baptist preacher but with sermons about intersectionality and Beyoncé instead of Ecclesiastes." Judy Woodruff: And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.Roxane Gay : "I encourage you to check out Eloquent Rage out now." I’m Brittney Cooper, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on my eloquent rage. Putting those things together gives you a clarity and a vision about where we can go if we stop oppressing black folks and women and gender non-conforming folk.Īnd, so, black feminism taught me that, and I think it can teach you that, too. There is a truth-telling that happens at that nexus of blackness and feminism, at that space of having to work twice as hard to get half as far, which is a black proverb, and at that space of knowing that, so often, you can be the dopest chick in the room, and they will give it to the mediocre white man in the room.
#BRITTNEY COOPER ELOQUENT RAGE FREE#
So, we will free you, but, you know, can you work 10 years? Can we sort of gradually phase you out of slavery?Īnd there were others who said, we’re going to pass this amendment and, at that moment, you will be free.Īnd for those of us who continue to struggle with a white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal power structure, immediate freedom is what we want. In the 1800s, there were gradualists who said, we want to end slavery, but we want to do it in steps. They remind me of the debates over slavery in this country and ending slavery. That kind of pushing back the clock, which is a phrase that we use all the time, is a way in which those in power like to say to those of us who don’t have power, we’re going to determine not only what you get, but when you get it.Īnd that is the critical difference between young activists who are in the streets saying, change it now, change it today, we don’t want your gradualism. And they do so by saying, we will get there. White people dictate the pace of social inclusion. We have racial animus the likes of which we have not seen in my lifetime, a resurgence of law enforcement engaging black folks in ways that are often deadly and often with impunity. We keep on relitigating basically the 1860s in this country. And part of the reason that we have, for instance, Black History Month in this country is because we literally have to make the argument that black people have actually done things that are significant to the creation of the nation-state.Īnd it turns out if we didn’t have things like Black History Month, apparently, people wouldn’t believe that black people were actually significant historical actors. Time has a history, and so do black people.
So, in the 1700s and 1800s, various groups of white European men got together and just decided that Africa didn’t matter in the span of world history. And there’s a way that, even if you go back to the early Western philosophers that everybody loved - my least favorite is Georg Hegel, who said, you know, Africa is no historic part of the world. White people feel like they own time and control history. But I think that being both those things is the thing that will save us. I’m unapologetically black, and I’m unapologetically a feminist.Īnd, look, depending on what circles you’re in, it’s hard to be both those things at the same time. She calls on us to look at the past during this Black History Month and recognize change shouldn’t always be gradual.Ĭooper recently came out with a new book, “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower.”īrittney Cooper: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower: I’m a black feminist, capital B, capital F. In tonight’s Brief But Spectacular, we hear from cultural theorist, author and professor Brittney Cooper.
Judy Woodruff: Questions of race and power are obviously not limited to the movies.
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