When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost : My Life as A Hip Hop Feminist (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For a smart young black woman from the South Bronx carving a niche for herself as a writer, the f-word was feminism. Joan Morgan's book debut, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, is a passionate, funny--and occasionally self-indulgent--look at the contradictions inherent in being both a strong woman and an African American sister attempting to process the machismo of the hip-hop world through the perceptions of her own strongly feminine soul. "As post-Civil Rights, post-feminist, post-soul children of hip-hop," Morgan writes, "we have a dire need for the truth." Her book chronicles the quest to fulfill that need through a series of essays ranging from social issues like the blatant misogyny of rap music ("From Fly-girls to Bitches and Hos"), the mythic stereotype of the strong black woman ("Strongblackwomen"), and the epidemic of single motherhood in the black community ("Babymother") to wickedly witty takes on her own life ("Lovenotes," "Chickenhead Envy").

Morgan is gifted with that rarest of all talents: her own voice. Her language is vivid and imagistic, its rhythms dipping effortlessly between the beat of the street and the meter of pure poetry. In this look at hood versus womanhood, Morgan serves up many of the same conclusions that sociologists have offered in drier, more academic form--but brings them to life with the freshness of her literary talent. --Patrizia DiLucchio

From Publishers Weekly

Morgan, a contributing writer at Essence and former contributor to the Village Voice, brings iconoclastic, often vituperative gusto to 10 previously unpublished essays on feminism, motherhood and the "endangered black male." Morgan's lingua franca is hip-hop music,which she calls "one of few forums in which young black men are allowed to express their pain," and is also the cultural arena in which she undertakes to carve a place for herself as a feminist. In her take-no-prisoners redefinition of "the f-word" (feminism), she reviles black female intellectuals who "had little to do with everyday life" and "butch-cut anti-babes... who use made-up words," and admits there are "things [she] kinda digs about patriarchy." In the essay "babymother," Morgan considers the feminist dilemma of career versus motherhood, ending with a defense of male "abortion" through which men "abdicate" parental rights when pregnant women refuse to have abortions or put children up for adoption. The title refers to women who "effectively work their erotic power," in a play on Malcolm X's "chickens come home to roost" speech (which signaled his break with the Nation of Islam and the creation of his Muslim mission in the U.S.) that simultaneously fractures the meaning of Audre Lorde's essay on women's rightful claim to "erotic power." Morgan concludes that "trickin'" (rendered as a kind of lighthearted prostitution) is "prevalent across class lines" and shows how "deeply wedded money, sex, and power are to our notions of male and female identity." Though she claims to "explore the world of the modern black woman from a variety of viewpoints," Morgan comes off as a self-consciously styled hip-hop provocateuse. Agent, Sarah Lazin.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684822628
• ISBN-13: 978-0684822624
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #734,413 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When chickenheads come home to roost, February 17, 2000

By	A Customer (New York city, New York) - See all my reviews

This is a must read for the black feminist who doens't quite get the "N.O.W." viewpoint on feminism. Joan Morgan puts into words the conflicting feeling and emotions of being black, female, and a feminist from the generation X-ers viewpoint, using language that is easily related to. She doesn't sink down into dense theory that could be exclusionary in language and nature. Theory that can leave one feeling as if they should have taken a beginners course before attempting to delve into the mind bogling, high handed concepts. She maintains her focus and is concise as well as insightful. Most feminist theory tends to be a turn off since a lot of such material is geared towards a limited, elitist audience who leaves black feminist and other of an outside group feeling even more like an outsider because they don't address the differning issues and concerns that pertain especially to woman of color. Moreover, this is a book that should not only be read by black woman but by latina's as well. As a black female of latin descent I fould myself relating to almost every word. A must have. A must read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for the young black woman of the 90's, October 28, 1999

By A Customer

As a young, black, struggling, college senior, this book gave me hope, inspiration, and motivation to look inside of myself and to stop pointing the finger at everyone else so much. If you want to go deep into the psyche, then this book is for you. Joan Morgan is definitly someone that I can relate to. Any young black woman, or woman will definitly gain an abundance of knowledge by putting this book into their shopping cart.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In a word: Real., February 14, 2000

By	Cynthia (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

I love hip-hop but is my love of this sub-culture contradictory to my existence as a black feminist? At first I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book, after all skepticism is a true character trait of my generation (X and Y). But I've found from the shout-outs in the beginning to the last period in the book, Ms. Morgan is quite informative, insightful, and most of all --just real. I felt as if she knew me...she not only allowed me to understand her experience but enable me to begin to define my own.