Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability
Kemeshia Randle Swanson
The University Press of Mississippi
Beginning with their forced introduction to American soil, Black women have relied on maverick-like characteristics to survive. And yet, these liberating qualities have been repeatedly disparaged by the masses in favor of an elitist politics of respectability.
In Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability, scholar Kemeshia Randle Swanson examines the extent to which the politics of respectability diminish joy and increase sorrow throughout the lifespan of Black women. By rejecting this damaging standard in society, Black women can wholly and attentively assist in the obliteration of racist, sexist, classist, and ableist oppression. But first, they must work towards becoming self-identified, self-actualized, and self-sexualized.
Maverick Feminist offers hope concerning the growing divide between scholars and the communities about which they theorize. The book celebrates centuries of agency and control that Black women have mustered and maintained in a world that seems to want nothing more than to see them prone and powerless. Ultimately, maverick feminism provides a freer means of living out, evaluating, understanding, and improving the lives of Black women.