Black Feminist Theory

Black Feminist Theory

According to this theory, the experience of black women gives them a particular perception of their sexual, class oppression, and racial status in their respective societies. According to Kimberle Crenshaw, the experience of being a black woman must be explained via intersectionality but not in terms of being a woman or black. Therefore, being black or being a female must be explored independently while trying to understand that the intersecting identities reinforce and compound upon one another. This theory has become very common in recent years, but how, for Gumbs, is black feminists already at the end of the world?

After The End of the World

Gumbs tries to explore the possibility of a black life after a worldwide apocalypse occurs. She uses her speculative work to arouse the readers to think about what they know about the world and what they do not know about the world. Throughout her work, there are specific scenarios where she has illustrated that the black feminist is already at the end of the world. After the end of the world is one of her book’s subtitle and it contains a footnote buried profoundly in Fred Moten’s “notes on the Passage” whereby he urges Ed Robertson’s to come back and see the earth for at least the last time before the world ends. She then goes forth to ask the readers whether the earth can survive the world (Gumbs 22). As if diverting from this question, she then explains that people have violated the trust of being born. People have exhibited little respect for the world they live in, and on the water, they bask in.

In some scenarios, people turn to mathematics and science to find answers to various dilemmas. In such situations, Gumbs says, “You could have inquired from anyone sitting on the porch back in her day,” she could have given you the real answer because she already knew it.” Written with the ancestors composed with whom Gumbs refers to as “the far-into-the-future witnesses to the realism we are making likely or difficult with our current apocalypse,” Gumbs gives reference to M. Jacqui Alexander’s pedagogies of crossing: Mediations on feminism, sexual politics, memory, and the sacred (2005) (Gumbs 41). Gumbs relies on alexander’s argument that the Middle passage resulted in the displacement and migration of many people and also the transfer of elements and energies to infuse her text with several elemental theories (Gumbs 34). She majors on several daily realities such as the sky, ocean, and fire and uses them to explain apocalypse on earth. Gums goes further to explain the periodic table elements such the chlorine, sodium, oxygen, and hydrogen. These elements, according to her, can be both world-breaking and world-making, depending on how they are used. She describes black pneuma as a situation where there are mass displacement and movement of exhalation and inhalation to which may destroy life. She describes life to be capacious, exorbitant, social, and fundamental; however, life is being endangered by brutal violence, and this is a critical situation because soon, life may end. She explains that people are revolting because they can no longer breathe due to many reasons, and their lives are in danger.

The author uses descriptive language to make the reader feel that they are participating in the war too. According to her, archives are not only rewritten but also reconstituted for a black feminist speculative project. The author discussed black feminists in a communal and sacred approach. According to her, breathing is beautiful, and it is also dangerous. The world is hot and melting due to many issues, and this is threatening human life significantly. Humans were previously using life, air, and light, which were the real objects of life, but now they have turned into using candles and trains. The author explains that due to the current harsh conditions, human beings should learn to live underground, and how to move above the ground and return undetected. She goes forth to explain that life has become a small and fragile light that is quickly extinguished by wind. She urges people to release the burden over their bodies so that they can sustain life.

Gumbs has done a lot of research on the topic of breathing of black. The studies were inspired by the rampant attacks on black life, which have subsequently endangered black life. She suggests that if breath will not be put back into life, then the black race is generally threatened. Gumbs wonders why a person may choose to come to the earth at this time. Black people are considered as critical sites of knowledge production, and black women play a crucial role in this process. Through this, it is evident that Gumbs is trying to explore racism and racial categorization. After the end of the world is an excellent example of a masterpiece which explains how people are discriminated in line with their race. It illustrates how such groups of people are privileged. Nevertheless, the author succeeded in using various examples to explain how “black feminist theory is already the end of the world.”

Works Cited

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. M Archive: After the end of the world. Duke University Press, 2018. 1-77