Sister Outsider
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Notes from a trip to Russia -- Poetry is not a luxury -- The transformation of silence into language and action -- Scratching the surface : some notes on barriers to women and loving -- Uses of the erotic : the erotic as power -- Sexism : an American disease in blackface -- An open letter to Mary Daly -- Man child : a black lesbian feminist's response -- An interview : Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich -- The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house -- Age, race, class, and sex : women redefining difference -- The uses of anger : women responding to racism -- Learning from the 60s -- Eye to eye : black women, hatred, and anger -- Granada revisited : an interim report.
Eloquent Rage
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"So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. 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. Yet 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. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women's eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It's what makes Beyoncé's girl power anthems resonate so hard. It's what makes Michelle Obama an icon. Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don't have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother's eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today. In Brittney Cooper's world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. These times demand the fierce honesty of Brittney Cooper, who reminds us that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right-side up again."
The Source of Self-Regard
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"One of the most celebrated and revered writers in the history of American literature gives us a new nonfiction collection--a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades. The Source of Self-Regard is brimming with all the elegance of mind and style, the literary prowess and moral compass, that are Toni Morrison's hallmarks. It is divided into three parts: the first is introduced by a powerful prayer for the dead of 9/11, the second by a searching meditation on Martin Luther King Ir., and the last by a heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. In the writings and speeches included here, Morrison takes on contested social issues: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, "black matter(s) and human rights. She looks at enduring aspects of culture: the role of the artist in society, the literary imagination, the Afro-American presence in American literature, and, in her Nobel lecture, the power of language itself. And here too is piercing commentary on her own work (including The Bluest Eye, Sala, Tar Baby, Jazz, Beloved, and Paradise) and that of others, among them painter and collagist Romare Bearden, author Toni Cade Bambara, and theater director Peter Sellars. In all, The Source of Self-Regard is a luminous and essential addition to Toni Morrison's oeuvre."
