alexis pauline gumbs revolutionary mothering

To make it basic, if the choice is transform or conform, I choose transform. As a queer black feminist I believe my role is to make space for transformation and to reject the violence of conformity. My queerness is my belief that love transforms everything. A black feminist approach is a transformative transformative approach. A black approach is a transformative approach. A queer approach is a transformative approach. All of those words for me signify transformation at the root. I identify as a queer black feminist and all of those words actually mean the same thing to me. How do you define “queer” and how does queer inform how you approach your activism? That’s the longer answer. The short answer is that those texts are sacred because they saved my life and I also believe they hold key concepts that could allow us as a species to save our relationship with this planet.

And the changes, deaths and possibilities I face (and that all of us face in this time) are absolutely shaped by the interlocking oppressions black feminism seeks to obliterate and the multiplicity of being and knowing that black feminism activates. Black feminism is my spiritual practice because it is the tradition that has given me grounding, guidance and if not peace, certainly passion in the face of change, death and possibility in my life. I was interested in how people made sense of the world and how they turned back to specific texts and stories to bring them grounding, guidance and peace in the face of change, death and possibility. I grew up with a major interest in world religions. When and how did you come to the realization that you could use writings by black feminists, such as Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Barbara Smith, as sacred texts? Her work activates my imagination, my spirit and my senses all at once. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing.

Right now I am writing daily with prompts made from my favorite phrases from M.

Alexis pauline gumbs revolutionary mothering