Black Feminism Forever

Beloveds! Last night I had the glorious honor of being one of the inaugural honorees for Black Feminist Future’s North Star Awards alongside the great Barbara Smith, Dorothy Roberts, my wonder twin Moya Bailey and the amazing organization Snap Co!

Today is my father’s birthday and in honor of his memory and his presence I dedicate this award to him. Here is my acceptance speech from last night.

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Black Feminism Lives!!!!  I love you all so much.  And that’s my interpretation of this beautiful North Star honor.  I hope it means you can feel it.  It feels very auspicious to me that this gorgeous event is happening 2 days before my birthday.  Because Black feminism is my perpetual rebirth, my true love, my mailing address, my meaning, my reason, my religion, my every breath.  And thank you Black Feminist Future for honoring the eternity of the Black Feminism within which we live and breathe and have our being.

Tomorrow is my father’s birthday. He would have been 69 years old.  And he’s been an ancestor for almost 7 years now. But let me tell you he would have been respecting the boundaries and guidelines of this space and also livestreaming every session because, though he was a straight cis west indian man, he self-identified as a queer black feminist like me.  And yes.  This was an act of love.  An act of support for his queer black feminist daughter.  But it was also his own access to the transcendent possibility that keeps us waking up excited to keep creating a black feminist movement.  For my father, the queer vision that black feminism possible represented the level of liberation he wanted for himself, and that he like us wants for everyone. And it required of him what it requires of all of us, to grow beyond who we think we are, to lay down all our fears, our coping mechanism, the identities that are too small for us, and that Toni Cade Bambara taught us will not and should not outlive our revolution.  The queer potential of black feminism required my father to change jobs and change gods, to surrender all to the possibility of our freedom.  Which means that even though he would have lived in the light of my memory regardless, because he was a committed queer black feminist my father found eternity before died.

This is what I mean when I say BLACK FEMINISM LIVES.  Because Audre Lorde taught us that this work didn’t start with us and it will continue after we are gone.  Because I’m pretty sure, is this right Beloved Demita Frazier? that the most repeated word in the Combahee River Collective Statement after Black and Women and we and us is ALWAYS.

You know that from the experience of this weekend and of your own life. Black Feminism is made up of infinite acts of love and each of those acts was dreamed of by our ancestors and impacts our future generations, so therefore each of these decisions we are making these actions we are taking is eternal.

And this is why I love you Black Feminist Future, because you honor that eternity in space and time and practice.  Thank you for making structures for this infinite love we call black feminism to flow in all directions.

Thank you for letting me be part of your/our/this eternal life.

Now, if you would, loved ones, say it back to me.  Call and response style. Black feminism lives.  Black feminism lives.  Black feminism lives!