From a highly respected thinker on race, gender, and American politics, a new consideration of black women and how distorted stereotypes affect their political beliefs Jezebel’s lasciviousness, Mammy’s devotion, and Sapphire’s outspoken anger—these are among the most persistent stereotypes that black women encounter in contemporary American life. Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized. In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to Michelle Obama.
Melissa V. Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair, Executive Director of the Pro Humanitate Institute, and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, at Wake Forest University. Her previous book, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, won the 2005 W. E. B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and 2005 Best Book Award from the Race and Ethnic Politics Section of the American Political Science Association.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
"The Hurricane," from Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1
Introduction 4
"The Bridge Poem," Kate Rushin 24
Chapter 1 Crooked Room 28
Chapter 2 Myth 51
"Resisting the Shame of Shug Avery," from The Color Purple Alice Walker 98
Chapter 3 Shame 101
Chapter 4 Disaster 134
"No Mirrors in My Nana's House," Sweet Honey in the Rock, lyrics Ysaye Maria Barnwell 180
Chapter 5 Strength 183
Chapter 6 God 221
"Praise Song for the Day," Elizabeth Alexander 266
Chapter 7 Michelle 269
Appendix: Survey Data 301
Notes 315
Index 368
What People are Saying About This
Donna Brazile
Sister Citizen carefully documents the complex challenges and hurdles Black women face in the 21st century. Harris-Perry's book is both insightful and provocative. A must read for those interested in learning more about American politics.—Donna Brazile, Political Commentator for CNN and ABC News and former Interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
In this compelling book, dazzling in its breadth and depth, Melissa Harris-Perry deploys the quantitative tools of the political scientist as expertly as she displays the qualitative methods of the literary and cultural critic. Sister Citizen challenges readers to rethink the meaning of politics when it comes to the complex lives of African American women.—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, founding director, Spelman College Women's Research and Resource Center
From the Publisher
"Harris-Perry offers fascinating observations of how black women are, at times, constricted by their mythology and asserts that their experiences act as a democratic litmus test for the nation." —-Booklist
Lester K. Spence
Sister Citizen lends empirical heft to the adage the "personal is political". Melissa Harris-Perry does an excellent job of weaving literature, social science, and personal accounts to produce a powerful work on black women's politics. Brilliant.—Lester K. Spence, author of Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics
Cathy J. Cohen
This is a broad, ambitious and important book that centers black women at the heart of American politics. Harris-Perry commands multiple methods, sources, and theories to provide a nuanced, caring, and provocative reading of black women as archetypal citizens, barometers of the health of our democracy. Supporting her arguments throughout the book are the words, ideas and actions of black women. From her opening discussion of Their Eyes Were Watching God and Hurricane Katrina to her final chapter on Michelle Obama, Harris-Perry offers a new reading of black women’s emotional and psychological lives as inherently political, reflecting the work of marginal communities to gain political recognition. In this work, Harris-Perry broadens our ideas of what counts as political, disrupts our ideas about what the study of American politics should look like, and restores our belief that resistance and struggle can change lives, communities and nations.—Cathy J. Cohen, University of Chicago
“After I read Melissa Harris-Perry’s new effort, Sister Citizen, two words sprang to my mind: Thank you. . . . [She] convincingly argues that tired images of Black women as castrating shrews, neck-rolling round-the-way girls and long-suffering, asexual mammies undermine Black women’s progress and power . . . She wisely uses the powerful chorus of real women to echo her battle cry that all sisters must be seen as true citizens before this country can move forward.”—Patrik Henry Bass, Essence
“Melissa Harris-Perry is one of our most trenchant readers of modern black life. In Sister Citizen, she gives new life to the idea that ‘the personal is political.’ This book will change the conversation about the rights, responsibilities, and burdens of citizenship.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
“Sister Citizen carefully documents the complex challenges and hurdles Black women face in the twenty-first century. Harris-Perry’s book is both insightful and provocative. A must read for those interested in learning more about American politics.”—Donna Brazile, Political Commentator for CNN and ABC News and former Interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee
“A feminist manifesto endeavoring to free sisters forever from the cruel and very limiting ways in which they continue to be pigeonholed.”—Kam Williams, Insight
