The Echoing Ida Collection

by Cynthia R. Greenlee (Editor), Kemi Alabi (Editor), Janna A. Zinzi (Editor), Michelle Duster (Foreword by)

Overview

Rooted in reproductive justice, Echoing Ida harnesses the power of media for social justice—amplifying the struggles and successes of contemporary freedom movements in the US.

Founded in 2012, Echoing Ida is a writing collective of Black women and nonbinary writers who—like their foremother Ida B. Wells-Barnett—believe the "way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Their community reporting spans a wide variety of topics: reproductive justice and abortion politics; new and necessary definitions of family; trans visibility; stigma against Black motherhood; Black mental health; and more.

This anthology collects the best of Echoing Ida for the first time, and features a foreword by Michelle Duster, activist and great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Imagining a gender-expansive and liberated future, these essays affirm the powerful combination of #BlackGirlMagic and the hard, unceasing labor of Black people to reimagine the world in which we live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558612839
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Cynthia R. Greenlee is a writer, editor, and historian of the African-American experience. She is a former senior editor at Rewire.News.

Kemi Alabi is a poet, teaching artist, and cultural strategy director of Forward Together.

Janna A. Zinzi is a communications strategist, writer and performer.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction to Section One: The Structures and the Struggle

Kemi Alabi

The structure: the house white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy and capitalism built. A violent political, economic and cultural system created to hoard power and resources, specifically among white, able-bodied, straight, Christian, cisgender men.

The struggle: attempting life within the structure as people never meant to survive it.

(Did we lose anybody? Cool, moving on.)

We hold these truths to be self-evident: the structure and the struggle are real. To understand the shape the structure takes, just look at the imprints it leaves on our bodies. To understand its breadth and depth, just follow our attempts to live life free from harm.

We know more about this structure and its keepers than it could ever know about us—the humans it warps into mules and machines, goblins and ghosts. So we compare notes, passing along the knowledge we need not only to survive the struggle, but to dismantle the structure brick by brick.

There’s a growing backlash against “identity politics.” This backlash critiques groups who find solidarity and build power based on our shared experiences of systemic harm. But this backlash avoids critiquing those who organize and maintain the violent structure in the first place. And its primary ask is our silence. How curious.

We note the concerns, but our lived experiences? Quality intel. Our struggles? Very real. And when we shout our truths together? The whole damn structure starts to shake.

The Right to (Black) Life

Renee Bracey Sherman

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., by a police officer. Every August, our nation grieves with his mother, Lesley McSpadden, as she mourns the murder of her son.

Ms. McSpadden and other mothers of black people slain by police have become emblems of the movement against racialized police violence. But they represent something bigger: the heartbreaking dilemmas black women face at every point in the motherhood journey.

Many American women live under a fog of critique about our choices when it comes to our reproductive health and motherhood. But this is especially true for black women.

If we choose to have an abortion, we are cast as villains by anti-abortion campaigns that tap into the trauma of our country’s racial history. Outside of clinics, I often hear protesters shout racial slurs and say things like “unborn black lives matter” when black people walk past them.

This isn’t new. Anti-abortion activists have long said that the most dangerous place for a black child is in the womb. They believe that abortion, not police brutality, is the civil rights issue of our time.

But we are stereotyped and called welfare queens if we choose to continue a pregnancy we cannot afford. In addition, black women are ostracized for having children “too young” and for having kids that society deems “illegitimate.”

Then, regardless of the life we provide for our children, if they are killed by police officers, our parenting decisions will inevitably be criticized.

From conception until death, damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

With access to women’s reproductive health care under attack and low-income families and women of color disproportionately affected, many advocates have rightly been concerned that black women are particularly vulnerable.

Yes, it’s essential that black women have the choice about whether to conceive and give birth. But this choice, without the ability to protect a child from violence, rings hollow. That’s why it’s important to understand that the fight for reproductive justice and the fight to end police brutality go hand in hand.

State violence and control, whether through racist policing, the criminal justice system or the welfare system, are all issues at the core of reproductive justice. They are fundamentally about whether you, or the state, has control over your own body and destiny.

The movement for reproductive justice, a human rights framework created by women of color in 1994, is not only about the ability to decide if, when and how to become a parent. It’s also about the ability to survive, and perhaps even thrive, in your own body. It’s about the right to abortion care, of course, and to healthy pregnancies free of shame. And reproductive justice is about the ability to raise children to become adults.

But we can’t make these choices if we ourselves aren’t safe. Not only do black women have to worry about police brutalizing their children, but we also have to fear this violence ourselves.

Charleena Lyles was pregnant when she was shot and killed by the police in her Seattle home, in front of her children, after she called them for help after a robbery. Korryn Gaines, fearing for her and her children’s lives, was shot and killed after she armed herself when Baltimore County police officers came to her home to serve her with an arrest warrant. Over a dozen black women were raped and terrorized by the Oklahoma City officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who preyed on them because he thought no one would care about black women.

The impact of this discrimination and inequality begins early. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists writes that “racial bias is an issue that affects our patients, either directly by subjecting them or their families to inequitable treatment, or indirectly by creating a stressful and unhealthy environment.”

Instead of working to create solutions to end police violence, anti-abortion politicians and the countless people who have criticized bereaved black mothers argue over whether the deceased — someone’s child — was an “angel” or not. They ask whether his father was involved enough and whether his mother taught him right from wrong.

They scrutinize every parenting decision and ignore the structural issues that force those decisions. They don’t engage with the challenges we face in a racist society that limits our ability to survive.

It’s heartbreaking to make the life-changing decision to carry a pregnancy to term only to bury your baby because police officers killed him while he was playing in a park or while she was sleeping on a couch.

Far too often, compassion for black lives doesn’t extend beyond the womb or to the black women carrying that womb. Too few tears are shed for the people killed by police violence. Reproductive justice is about the resolve to raise our families on our own terms, safely. This is the fight for the right to life.

Table of Contents

I: The Structures and the Struggle

Introduction by Kemi Alabi

"The Right to (Black) Life" by Renee Bracey Sherman

"Powerless in the Face of White Supremacy and a Gun" by Bianca Campbell

"The Violence Happening in Ferguson Is More Than Physical" by Alexandra Moffett-Bateau

"What Black Lives Matter Organizers Are Doing to Fight White Supremacy at Every Level" by Shanelle Matthews

"The school-to-prison pipeline affects girls of color, but reform efforts pass them by" by Ruth Jeannoel

"#UsToo: We Must Expand the Conversation on Sexual Violence" by Raquel Willis

"We Should All Go to Rehab" by Yamani Hernandez

"Weed for Period Pain? Yes, But I Want Equity in the Marijuana Industry Too" by Jasmine Burnett

"Equal Pay Day for (Some) African-American Women" by Alexandra Moffett-Bateau

"Urban and Rural America Are Connected by Economic Refugees Like Me" by Erin Malone

"Trans Women are Women. This Isn’t a Debate." by Raquel Willis

II: Birth Justice…and Yes, That Includes Abortion

Introduction by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Who Should You Listen to on Abortion? People Who’ve Had Them" by Renee Bracey Sherman

"The Road to Roe: Paved with Bodies of Women of Color and the Legal Activism of African Americans" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Whitewashing Reproductive Rights: How Black Activists Get Erased" by Renee Bracey Sherman

"What My First Pregnancy Taught Me About Birth Justice" by Ruth Jeannoel

"Serena Williams Could Insist That Doctors Listen to Her. Most Black Women Can’t" by Elizabeth Dawes Gay

"Choice Under Fire: Issues Surrounding African American Reproductive Rights" by Renee Bracey Sherman

"The Story That’s Taken Ten Years to Tell: On Abortion, Race and the Power of Story" by Shanelle Matthews

"On ‘Commonsense Childbirth’: A Q&A with Midwife Jennie Joseph" by Elizabeth Dawes Gay

"Insurance Coverage of Doula Care Would Benefit Patients and Service Providers Alike" by Elizabeth Dawes Gay

"The Largely Forgotten History of Abortion Billboard Advertising—and What Pro-Choice Advocates Can Learn from It" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Want to Win on Abortion? Talk About It as an Issue of Love, Compassion" by Yamani Hernandez

III: Family Matters

Introduction by Kemi Alabi

"A (Midwestern) Black Lesbian’s Reflections on 20 Years of Being Family" by Jasmine Burnett

"Stigma Around 'Non-Traditional Families Won't End with Assisted Reproductive Technology" by Bianca Campbell

"The Criminal Justice System Is Failing Black Families" by Samantha Daley

"For My Mother: A Day Without Cancer" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"I’ll Always Love Big Poppa: How Biggie Smalls Helped Me Understand My Parents’ Deaths" by Brittany Brathwaite

"Grieving a Mom Who's Still Here" by Sunshine Muse

"On Being a Proud Teen Mom: I Don't Hate Myself as Much as You wish I Did" by Gloria Malone

"Black CannaParents: Teaching Children Balance in An Environment Of Extremes" by Jasmine Burnett

"The Backlash to Beyoncé’s Pregnancy Is an Example of the Attack on Black Motherhood" by Gloria Malone

"The Names of Things" by Kemi Alabi

IV: Naked Power

Introduction by Janna Zinzi

"Auntie Conversations: Black Women Talk Sex, Self-Care, and Illness" by Charmaine Lang

"Shaming Women About Having Sex Doesn’t Stop Us from Having Sex" by Emma Akpan

"A New 'Pum Pum Palitx': Carnival and the Sex Education the Caribbean Needs" by Bianca Campbell and Samantha Daley

"Exam Rooms and Bedrooms: Navigating Queer Sexual Health" by Taja Lindley

"Why Doesn’t the Trans Community Have a Legit Dating App Yet?" by Raquel Willis

"Sexy M.F.: Celebrating Prince, New Orleans Baby Dolls and Not Giving a F*ck" by Janna Zinzi

"This is What Naked Power Looks Like" by Taja Lindley

"Black, Queer and Dating in the Buckle of the Bible Belt" by Jordan Scruggs

"Radically Truthful Dating Profiles" by Various

V: Beauty Breaks

Introduction by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Why I Debated Getting My Breast Augmented – And Why I Finally Did" by Raquel Willis

"Learning to Love It, Yes Even That: Boob Sweat and More" by Quita Tinsley

"I’m a Black Woman; That Doesn’t Mean I Have a Bomb in my Hair" by Taja Lindley

"Soft & Beautiful Just for Me Relaxer, No-Lye Conditioning Crème, Children’s Regular" by Kemi Alabi

"I Like My Unruly Eyebrows, Thank You Very Much" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenelee

"“Are You Just a Plaything of Nature?” Amina Ross on the Politics of Beauty" by Kemi Alabi

VI: For the 'Kulcha

Introduction by Janna Zinzi

"How Prince helped me be Black and genderqueer in America's Bible capital" by Jordan Scruggs

"30 Years Later, 7 Ways A Different World Was Woke AF" by Brittany Brathwaite

"How Statement T-Shirts Unite Black History, Culture, and Fashion" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Where’s the 16, Parenting, and OK Reality Show?" by Gloria Malone

"Lemonade refreshed my spirit. I didn’t feel exploited, commodified, or powerless, bell hooks." by Emma Akpan

"I Became a Black Woman in Spokane. But, Rachel Dolezal, I Was a Black Girl First" by Alicia Walters

"Reina Gosset Wants Her Just Due" by Raquel Willis

"The Word is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee" by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"We Will Always Love You: Why Whitney Houston Was Our All-American Gurl" by Jordan Scruggs and Janna Zinzi

VII: Black Love and Black Futures

Introduction by Dr. Cynthia R. Greenlee

"Journey to Me: How I Came Out and Embraced All of Me" by Charmaine Lang

"'Overworked and Underpaid': Organizing, Black Womanhood, and Self-Care" by Charmaine Lang

"In Betweens" by Jordan Scruggs

"Trans Visionaries: How Miss Major Helped Spark the Modern Trans Movement" by Raquel Willis

"Pleasure Politics Part I: Employment, Economic Justice and the Erotic" by Taja Lindley

"Healing in the Midst of Tragedy: How Can Black Folks Keep Surviving in the Face of Constant Trauma?" by Quita Tinsley

"Herbs That Fortify Us" by Carib Healing Collective

"Lessons in Queer Community Building: Fear, Yearning and Loving in Milwaukee" by Charmaine Lang

"Word is Bond: A Ritual" by Taja Lindley

Editorial Reviews

A rich awakening to the revolution and evolution of Black women and nonbinary voices, and a deeply majestic tribute to the expanse of Black cultural movements—in singular reverence and collective power.” —Rebecca Carroll, author of Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir

“Fueled by curiosity and generous with their vulnerability, the Idas ask probing questions of themselves, each other, and the world. Right now media outlets are scrambling to hire writers who can find and tell important stories about race, gender, sexuality, and power. Editors nationwide should know the Idas' names, seek them out, and pay them well for their insights and analysis.” —Dani McClain, author of We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood

From the Publisher