From Which I Draw My Strength: Audre, Eartha, and Frida

Abstract

Historically, women of color have been denied our humanity, woman-ness, and value. From the exploitation and sexual violence perpetuated during enslavement and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to the continued psychological damage done through harmful media messaging, erasure, and appropriation, women of color have continued to resist throughout time and space. This article highlights the unique ways Audre Lorde, Eartha Kitt, and Frida Kahlo utilized their voices to not only challenge social structures and power dynamics, but to overcome them and create the lives that they desired. With specific focus on the themes of self-care, self-advocacy, self-definition, and self-love—all topics explored in the women’s commentary, writings, and artistic expressions—the article will discuss the implications for navigating marginalisation and asserting agency. In addition to the themes, the article will also address the following questions:

• How does queerness—as a space/lens of social alterity—empower and inform the women in their social justice advocacy and activism?
• How did the women’s view of radical love—for both self and others—impact their work and aid in their pursuit of social change?
• How does self-identity and “defining oneself for oneself” lend itself to doing social justice work?

The article will close by presenting auto-ethnographical research that discusses the experience of a Black, queer, woman, academic in America navigating marginalization and asserting agency both in and out of academia, by implementing the teachings and drawing strength from Audre, Eartha, and Frida.

Bio

Dr Crystal Edwards (she/her) graduated from the Department of Africology with a Ph.D. in Africana Studies and a graduate certificate in Educational Policy from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Generally, her work centres the subjective experience of African descended people throughout the Diaspora, specifically the in the United States. Specifically, her work seeks to make visible the intersectional realities of African American women and girls, in their own voices. Dr Edwards is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator in the Africana Studies Department at San Francisco State University.