Written by Stormy
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We first met Patrice Douglass on the pages of Engendering Blackness: Slavery and the Ontology of Sexual Violence, where we read about Margaret Garner. Garner was an enslaved woman who committed infanticide in 1856, so that her child did not have to live in slavery like herself. Our collective read this chapter in Dr. Douglass’ book as a way to connect with a scholar who is influenced by Black feminism and archival research. The piece is a reflection on what it means to be a mother when you are considered property, a breeder of human laborers, and how history can objectify your actions and cause you to lose your humanity.
In order to understand how Dr. Douglass arrived at this book, she gave our group an extensive background of her lived experiences and how they influenced her approach to life. Her curiosity was first sparked at the dinner table, and those conversations fueled her into questioning life and the deeper meaning of hidden things. Education was deeply important to young Patrice and college was another place she used to broaden her horizons. Patrice attended classes which fueled her interest in Black feminisms and inspired her advocacy work in the California prison system. These educational opportunities gave her new perspectives and fulfillment she longed for.
These lived experiences fostered her path towards questioning and, eventually, writing this book. Similarly, our LAM Collective is questioning and looking in the archive and, although our topics are different, the overlap of our work is remarkable. We soon became Black feminist scholars speaking in unison with another Black feminist scholar. Our conversation showed how brilliant Patrice’s work is, and how her use of poetry to convey meaning when words won’t work is also paralleled in our bi-weekly meetings, where we start by reading a poem.
Our visit from Dr. Douglass was a warm, welcoming, and deeply thought-provoking experience that will be remembered forever.