Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Black Feminist Thought is a foundational text in the field of feminist studies. Celebrated for its depth, rigor, and commitment to centering the experiences of Black women, the book was first published in 1990, and its contemporary relevance is evidenced by the release of the 30th Anniversary Edition by Routledge in 2022. The book is not only required reading in many university Women’s Studies and Black Studies programs, but also used in a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, philosophy, psychology, and history. The popularity and longevity of Black Feminist Thought reflect the continued need for Black feminism to combat intersecting oppressions. As Collins observes, “As long as Black women’s subordination within intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation persists, Black feminism as an activist response to that oppression will remain needed” (22).

Collins is widely seen as a pioneer of Black feminism. She acknowledges this status in the Preface to the First Edition of Black Feminist Thought, while also warning of its pitfalls:

While it is certainly appealing to receive recognition for one's accomplishments, my experiences as the ‘first,’ ‘one of the few’, and the ‘only’ have shown me how effective selecting a few and using them to control the many can be in stifling subordinate groups. Assuming that only a few exceptional Black women have been able to do theory homogenizes African-American women and silences the majority (viii).

As Collins notes, the elevation of a few Black women thinkers at the expense of the many is contrary to her approach in Black Feminist Thought, which sees intellectual activity and theory as stemming from a range of people rather than being the province of a select few.

Collins was among the first academics to promote intersectionality, a term coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Black civil rights advocate and law professor specializing in issues of race and gender (Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1/8 (1989), pp. 139-67). Intersectionality is a system of analysis for understanding how people’s social identities result in varying combinations of privilege and discrimination. Collins approaches Black feminism through the lens of intersectional oppression, arguing that Black women face particular forms of oppression based on their race, sex, class, and sexuality. Her work, like that of Crenshaw and other late-20th century Black feminists, broadened the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which focused on the experiences of white, middle class, heterosexual women. Intersectionality addresses the experiences of women of color, poor women, lesbian and transgender women, immigrant women, and women from other marginalized groups. Its point of departure is the acknowledgment that women’s experiences differ based on their various social identities.

Intersectionality is central to critical race theory (CRT), an academic field developed by legal scholars in the 1970s and 1980s. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund defines CRT as “an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society—from education and housing to employment and healthcare” (“Critical Race Theory.” Legal Defense Fund). CRT recognizes that racism is not just the product of individual bias and prejudice, but also “embedded in laws, policies, and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities” (“Critical Race Theory”). CRT also posits that white people have benefited from the racism ingrained in American institutions. CRT is decades old, but only recently has it come to the attention of conservative politicians, many of whom claim it is anti-white. In 2021, for example, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill prescribing how teachers can speak to their students about current events related to race and America’s history of racism. The bill is one of several across the country aiming to ban CRT in K-12 public schools—where it has rarely if ever been used. These laws are of a piece with the ban on CRT in federal training instituted by President Donald J. Trump in 2020 (Neuman, Scott. “The Culture Wars Are Pushing Some Teachers to Leave the Classroom.” NPR, 13 Nov. 2022). The attacks on CRT, alongside the refusal to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism by many conservatives, speaks to the continued need for Black feminism and Collins’s Black Feminist Thought.