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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessary book for understanding black womanism, July 13, 2001
This review is from: When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down (Paperback)
I have bought this book three times now, because my students and friends keep borrowing it and "forgetting" to return it. They love it, and so do all of the black women I know who read it. This book is truly an insightful and elegant attempt to explain the complexity of black womanism (most black women reject feminism, which places gender at the center of an experience, and place race/gender/class at the center, and understand these things mix). She discusses the disgust "strongblackwomen" have for "chickenheads", whose conservative philosophy of using their bodies as a shortcut to monetary and sexual achievement hurts other black women, as we are accused of the same manipulative behavior. She also articulates what most educated black women have thought, over and over again, as we confront black women and men who want our (middle class black women's and black men's)help, but who then criticize us down for being responsible, disciplined, educated, and successful. She also deals with white racism, and how irresponsible people use it to tear down responsible black women. Redtwister's review denigrates her solutions as simplistic and symptomatic of her status as a middle class black women. He calls them "bootstrap" and "Nation of Islam." This reveals his lack of experience with the non-academic black community, and especially with the black inner city. He recommends a class analysis that leads to governmental solutions that just are not going to happen, and does not understand that this work is conscious at all times of "reality" and feasiblity. He does not understand that middle class black men and women are the key to fighting problems in the black community, for they understand the reality, and are the only ones who can fashion realistic solutions from experience. For too long the old jibe about middle class self help and education being oppressive has been used to silence the black middle class from effective discussion and influence. Her discussion of solutions is strong, feasible, and most importantly realistic and proven. Middle class black America has been hard at work at the business of saving poor black America for decades. Morgan's list of solutions not only has a history of common sense and success behind it, but also comes from the one group who has successfully escaped the ghetto. I recommend this book, and hope that the people who it is aimed at (non-academic black women finding their way in the world) read it. Every teenage girl who worships at the House of Lil' Kim and Destiny's Child needs to read this. The true problems with "chickenheads" (the materialism, the refusal to do things the right way, the view of their bodies and sex as cheap ways to manipulate men and gain material goods) hurts other black women as some black men (commercial gangsta rappers) attempt to pin these behaviors on all black women. The chickenheads don't understand that eventually, age and gravity means you need a brain. Too many are left hard and poor at 30, and alone. But these women will not read this book. Too bad.
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42 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed bag, June 12, 2000
This review is from: When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down (Paperback)
Not being African American or a woman, you can take this for what it is worth. Maybe not much. There's the disclaimer. The book has some really profound moments. The discussion of rap music, what is going on with the mysoginy in it, from pages 70-81 puts the whole scene in a different light. Really sharp stuff. I also liked her take on the Million Man March. I think her best moment is when she describes the inner connection between African American women and men (race, not just as oppression, but as a shared culture and community of integrity and struggle and failings and humanity, and most importantly, of LOVE) that seems to be lacking (or weaker) between white (middle or upper class) women and white men, who maybe often fight over getting full white privileges without gender discrimination. Some element of this exists among all working class women, but race figures as a more acceptable and prominent form of social identity (especially when the so-called "white race" is nothing more than a morally and culturally empty vessel of privileges and power over and against anyone defined as "not white".) This may be her most lucid moment. The whole discussion of the SBW also offers some insights that I would not otherwise have even a tiny clue about. For those insights and that sharing, I can only be thankful that Joan Morgan wrote this book. The problems appear in discussing solutions. Here, her entrenchment in the new Black middle class creates huge weaknesses and fragments, most notably a kind of ignorance of social problems connected to class (though it would be a mistake to confuse "chickenheads" with working class women.) All of her ideas about how to make things better parallel Nation of Islam "boot-strapism" and individualism. In a world where clean, safe, affordable childcare, healthcare, etc. do not exist for most women (of any color), unless Grandma and Aunties can be pulled in; the abscence of quality education (sometimes she expects STRONGBLACKMEN AND STRONGBLACKWOMEN exactly where the system does fail children and families); and the domination of alienated and alienating work that oppresses more than frees even when it pays "well" all escape her view. Class oppression and class conflict, and African American men and women's labor as a central source of corporate wealth (where did those rich men, Black or esp white get that money? Exploitation, and nowhere else) disappears. This shows her Third Wave roots, but also the political crisis of leadership in the African American community when a larger Black middle class seeks the right to have all the privileges of the white middle class, including the right to become an exploiter. She ignores the political problems posed by the integration of the Black middle class into white corporate America (not true during the Civil Rights Movement), a problem that impinges on the discussion of gender, too (try the last two chapters.) That I can talk this long just points out how ultimately rich this book is, if not satisfying. But compared to the banal and virtually Republican white Third Wave feminist works, this book should be in the hands and heads of every man and woman concerned with a real appreciation of the different ways race, class and gender play out. A good reminder that Black women are NOT just half Black man/Half white woman, as if one oppression added to another in a neat formula. Black women's experience is irreducible and powerful, and thanks to Joan Morgan for sharing her power with us.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!, February 5, 2006
This review is from: When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down (Paperback)
I like this book in that the author, Joan Morgan, does not try to act like her book has all the answers for everything. Instead, she just tries to offer her view and let you take what you can from it.
First she explores how feminism has traditionally been interpreted in Black culture, and how this limiting definition has evolved in the 21st century, especially as it relates to being a part of the hip-hop culture. She also explores how history has influenced the current relations between black men and women, and their evolution into the strongblackwoman and endangeredblackman stereotypes. Joan also talks about the animosity between "chickenheads" and strongblackwomen, and encourages women to really be themselves.
I especially like how Joan explores the relationship between black women and their fathers. She provides a unique insight and solution for this dilemma.
This book is a timely message for "strong" black women who are looking for a way to absolve thier independence with their innate feminism.
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