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Mikki Kendall Books

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“When feminist rhetoric is rooted biases like racism, ableism, transmisogyny, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia, it automatically works against marginalized women and against any concept of solidarity. It's not enough to know that other women with different experiences exist' you must also understand that they have their own femiminist formed by that experience. Whether it's an argument that women who wear the hijab must be "saved" from it, or reproductive-justice arguments that paint having a disabled baby as the worst possible outcome, the reality is that feminism can be marginalizing”

FeminismEmpowermentBlack WomenMarginalization
Book:Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
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“White savior narratives embedded in feminist rhetoric tend to position the people who don't get out as not being worth the effort of engagement, of needing to be led toward progressive ideologies instead of understanding that the conversations that need to happen between the proverbial hood and the hills are ones between equals who have had to face different obstacles to arrive at the same destination.”

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“They have to find inspiration in the people who make it out, not necessarily out of the hood itself but out of the cycle of trauma brought by poverty and oppression. The hood is still home. But they have to look beyond the troubled streets they are on every day and see themselves as worthy of saving.”

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“Now mainstream feminism has to step up, has to give itself to a place where it spends more time offering resources and less time demanding validation. Being an accomplice means that white feminism will devote its platform and resources to supporting those in marginalized communities doing feminist work.”

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“Being an ally is just the first step, the simplest one, it is the space wherein the privileged began to accept the flawed dynamics that make for inequality. Being a good ally is not easy, it’s not something you can jump into, though it can feel like you’re a know it all superhero. Privilege not only blinds you to oppression it blinds you to your own ignorance even when you notice the oppression. Why is becoming an ally so hard? Even would be allys have an immediate reaction of defensiveness when someone challenges them on their advice, their intentions, their need to be centered. It’s in that precise moment they need to stop, step back, and realize they are still part of the problem. It’s never the privileged outsider who gets to decide when they are a good ally, especially when now they want to use their status as an ally to excuse whatever they have done that has offended someone in the group they claim to be supporting.”

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“Allies tend to crowd out the space for anger with their demands that things be comfortable for them. They want to be educated, want someone to be kind to them whether they have earned that kindness or not. The process of becoming an ally requires a lot of emotional investment, and far too often the heavy lifting of that emotional labor is done by the marginalized, not the privileged. But part of that journey from being a would-be ally to becoming an ally to actually becoming an accomplice is anger. Anger doesn't have to be erudite to be valid. It doesn't have to be nice or calm in order to be heard. In fact, I would argue that despite narratives that present the anger of Black women as dangerous, that render being angry in public as a reason to tune out the voices of marginalized people, it is that anger and the expressing of it that saves communities. No one has ever freed themselves from oppression by asking nicely.”

FeminismEqualityEquityRacial JusticeEquity And Justice
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“When white feminism ignores history, ignores that the tears of white women have the power to get Black people killed while insisting that all women are on the same side, it doesn't solve anything. Look at Carolyn Bryant, who lied about Emmett Till whistling at her in 1955. Despite knowing who had killed him, and that he was innocent of even the casual disrespect she had claimed, she carried on with the lie for another fifty years after his lynching and death”

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“You can argue that conservative values are at odds with feminist ideology, but ultimately the question has to be not only what women are we empowering, but also what are we empowering them to do. White women aren't just passive beneficiaries of racist oppression; they are active participants.”

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“It's easy to blame the patriarchy, to rightfully point at the men who rape and hold them accountable. What's harder is to notice the women who sometimes passively direct rapists toward their victims by contributing to the hypersexualization of women of color under the guise of empowerment... Feminist white women who think "sexy Pocahontas" is an empowering look instead of lingering fetishization of the rape of a child. The same imagery they claim to find sexually empowering is rooted in the myth of white women's purity and every other woman's sexual availability.”

FeminismBlack WomenBlack HistorySexualization Of Women
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“[Rape is framed] as something that a potential victim can prevent if they learn the steps of this peculiar dance that is trying to avoid being possibly assaulted, the immediate response is often one of several questions ranging from “What were you wearing?” to “Why were you there?” to “Had you been drinking?” The answers to those questions can never be relevant — ultimately victims are assaulted because someone chose to attack them. Instead of tips on how not to be a rapist, how to teach people not to rape, or even on creating therapeutic outlets for potential rapists, we find a half dozen tips on preventing a mythical stranger from raping an able-bodied, alert, physically fit person with excellent reflexes and an exceptional amount of luck. These tips never address disability, differences in flight-or-flight (or freeze) adrenaline responses, or even the reality that most assailants are known to their victims.”

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