Sages, Artists, and Ancestral Storytelling: Honoring Black Women and Girls Through Thick Love

• In Event: Justice as Praxis: Cultivating Community, Centering Creativity, and Building Viable Pathways for Equitable Educational Systems

Abstract

WWe, three Black Women Scholars, elucidate arts-based methodologies as tools for rethinking and honoring Black Girls and Women (past and present) as worthy and honorable storytellers. We further detail how ancestral honoring of Black Women writers, visual artists, and poets shape our work, allowing us to imagine our art as research, and a valid part of the research process. Ancestral honoring has implications for continued research committed to Black Girls and Women. We root our discussion in theoretical frameworks including Black Girlhood Studies (Brown, 2008; Price-Dennis & Muhammad, 2021) and Critical Race Feminisms (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2010; Childers-McKee & Hytten, 2015). These frameworks are necessary to highlight and honor the unique experiences and contributions of Black Women and Girls. We draw upon the works of Black Women including Audre Lorde (1984) who argued for a deeper way of knowing Black femininity. She posited, “as they become known and accepted to ourselves, our feelings, and the honest exploration of them, become sanctuaries and fortresses and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas, the house of difference so necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action” (p. 26). Creating sanctuary spaces where Black Girls and Women do not leave research still bruised or carrying more wounds demands a reorientation toward research. Therefore, we dismantle and reject methodologies that do not operate through the lens of love (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2021). With this in mind, our paper has three inquiries: (1) How does researching through the eyes of love allow us to honor Black Girls and Women as sages? (2) How must we position Black Women’s art as forms of ancestral storytelling? and (3) How does using art allow us to honor Black Girls and Women as sages in our own scholarship and activism? We, the Justice as Praxis Collective, wholeheartedly reject superficial notions of love. Instead, we ground ourselves in Toni Morrison’s (1987) notion of “thick love” because “thin love ain’t love at all” (p. 164). Ultimately, we will demonstrate how reenvisioning advocacy can serve as tools of catharsis and change for Black Girls and Women in equitable systems of teaching, learning, and educational research.

References:

Brown, R. N. (2008). Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy (Mediated Youth) (First printing ed.). Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers.

Childers-McKee, C. D., & Hytten, K. (2015). Critical race feminism and the complex
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Evans-Winters, V. E., & Esposito, J. (2010). Other people's daughters: Critical race feminism
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Esposito, J., & Evans-Winters, V. E. (2021). Introduction to Intersectional Qualitative Research (First ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Crossing Press.

Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf.

Price-Dennis, D., & Muhammad, G. E. (2021). Black Girls’ Literacies (Expanding Literacies in Education) (1st ed.). Routledge.

Authors

• Theda Gibbs-Grey, Ohio University

• Dywanna Smith, Claflin University

• Mellissa Gyimah-Concepcion, Elgin Community College