Finding God in Me: A Black Woman’s Political Praxis in the Face of Populism

• In Event: No Way: Mass and Elite Resistance to the Neo-Populist Agenda

Abstract

“i found god in myself
and i loved her
i loved her fiercely”
Ntozake Shange , in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf writes poignantly of what happens when a Black woman transcends race-gender oppression making herself visible in a world that chooses not to see her—she finds god in herself. While the impact of religion is often studied in political science, what is sometimes overlooked is the functioning of spirituality and even more particular Black women’s use of spirituality as a political practice. Using auto-ethnography alongside the writings of Black feminist thinkers such as Audre Lorde and Pauli Murray, this paper explores the politics of making oneself visible in a political climate where Black women are celebrated for their efforts to oppose problematic political actors while their interest go untended. What I argue is that their politics is less about what has been normalized as “political behavior” and rest more in a practice of spirituality that allows for resistance and an imagination of a future that moves us beyond the confines of current political practices and behaviors.

Shange, Ntozake. 1997[1975]). For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. New York, NY: Scribner, 63.

Author

• Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, University of North Carolina Charlotte