What impact does the erasure of Black women organizers have on Black women-identifying CO students at Silberman School of Social Work?
Autoethnography is a qualitative social science method developed to challenge the colonialist and extractive nature of standard ethnographic research (Oswald, Bussey, Thompson, and Ortega-Williams, 2020). As a method, autoethnography allows for the researcher to engage in the analysis of the self in relationship to one’s environment and experiences (Oswald et. al, 2020). In this section we will use autoethnography to outline how we each experience the erasure of Black women’s organizing history from our community organizing curriculum.
Recentering the Most Marginalized
Leigh Taylor
Prior to attending Silberman, I feel that my world was steeped in the politics of Black feminist scholars and theorists. As an undergraduate sociology student I had read the work of bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberle Crenshaw, Dorothy Roberts, Angela Davis and more. These Black women were foundational to my understanding of myself and how I moved through the world. They helped me to understand that my experiences were a part of something much larger than myself. The work of Patricia Hill Collins helped me understand how black women’s positionality impacted their understanding of the world (standpoint epistemology). bell hooks gave me language to outline the different subjectivity of Black women from white women and Black men. Dorothy Roberts and Angela Davis elucidated the systems and policies that had criminalized Black women throughout history. Kimberle Crenshaw developed analytical frameworks to utilize this thought in academia. These women were my intellectual foremothers, and endowed in me a responsibility when moving through academic settings. Outside of academia, I saw how Black feminists were the backbone for much of the work we come up against in organizing spaces. I have been lucky to work in spaces that had an explicit Black feminist politic through which organizing was approached and community building developed. I existed in spaces where we honored great women like Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, while using the work of Adrienne Maree Brown and Charlene Carruthers to ground us.
These various experiences made me excited to again enter into a space that had focused so much on the importance of social justice within social work. In choosing community organizing as a method, I was making a choice to become apart of a great legacy of Black women organizers and liberators. I respected clinical social work as a practice, but felt that my involvement in community organizing could address the systemic violence that Black women experience due to their position at the intersection of various systems of oppression. As a second year student, I’ve been upset and hurt by the lack of focus on Black women and their contributions to campaign organizing. It feels as if our focus this year has heavily been around organizing that is both white and masculine in nature. We have looked at campaigns that use mostly legislative strategies to create change, while undermining the power of campaigns that live in the space of visionary politics. I have also experienced pushback in my efforts to underscore how race and class impact who can take part in certain forms of organizing due to their risk of violence and criminalization.
In this research class we discussed how citations and syllabus can lead to erasure of marginalized folks, and I feel that our community organizing curriculum has done just that. When Black women are rendered invisible in academic spaces, it perpetuates the notion that we do not belong. When our movements and intellectual labor are erased, it perpetuates the notion that we are not good enough. This has an impact on me, as a student who identifies as a Black woman in this department. I feel that I have to fight to highlight the forms of organizing that my foremothers have done. But even in fighting for that recognition, I often feel that the work is still diminished. I look forward a community organizing curriculum that outlines how integral Black women and their organizing practices have been to movements. I recognize my power as an organizer and a social worker, but this curriculum leads me to believe that the CO department might not see that. We must center those that are most marginalized, but continue to work towards all of our liberation.
Standing on Their Shoulders
Malaika A. Small
I am approximately five months from graduating with an MSW degree from Silberman School of Social Work (SW). One reason that I applied to this program specifically is because of its commitment to social justice and its public acknowledgment that oppression and white supremacy are deeply problematic. The second reason that I applied is that, unlike other SW programs, Silberman offers a Community Organizing track. During my research of the program, I quickly determined that this is where I needed to be! Silberman’s SW program checked all the boxes and aligned perfectly with my experience as well as future goals and aspirations to serve as an agent of change in my community. Since the start of the program, I have learned about the technical nuances of grassroots organizing such as guiding theories, key concepts, and critical elements of coalition building. Last year, I had the pleasure of working alongside organizers on the #HALTsolitary campaign at my field placement. This experience is one that I will treasure forever. After two consecutive semesters of organizing courses, I entered this semester with openness and excitement to build on previous learning.
Community Organizing III (COIII), a final requirement for graduation, is a course that is comprehensive as well as practical. Much of the content centers on the critical analysis and examination of social movements and campaigns throughout history. I thoroughly enjoy academic debates and discourse about effective organizing and the exploration of pivotal social movements. However, there is something in this program that is missing for me! My first thought leans toward the concern that there is a striking lack of influential female voices of color in the curriculum. To name only a few, where is the mention of Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, or Septima Clark? Honestly, I am questioning whether or not a dynamic and authentic conversation about community organizing can exist without noting some of the founding mothers of grassroots organizing. I should back up a bit and explain why representation matters to me. I am a Black cis-gendered woman and community organizing student. Subsequently, I have a vested interest in matters that directly relate to those who look like me and marginalized groups that I seek to support. I am deeply saddened that Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) seem to have been the primary focal points of analysis over the past three semesters.
I should note, in my household, I was raised by a Jamaican-born immigrant father and a Black mother from the rural south. I was taught at an early age about the significance and complexity of Black women in relation to social movements. My belief system posits that Black women are and have been the core and at the forefront of social movements dating as far back as Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. However, to my dismay, there has been very little conversation about the contributions of Black women organizers or their role in social movements throughout periods of time in history within the CO curriculum at Silberman. It is for this reason that I find myself collaborating with my colleagues, other Black women who stand in solidarity with me in the CO program. In our efforts, we seek to foreground the erasure of Black women in the CO curriculum, amplify the voices of my ancestors, and highlight the profound work they have done and continue to do in grassroots organizing. It is their shoulders that I so proudly stand on and it is their legacy that I wish to continue.
