Black Feminist Rants

The season finale of BFR includes guest speaker Irma Garcia who is a sex educator based in Texas. 

Irma is a certified sex educator in Texas and client services manager at Jane’s Due Process, where she helps Texas minors exercise their reproductive rights to an abortion. Prior to joining the JDP team, she was a sexual health and abortion counselor at a local Austin clinic, as well as a birth doula. Now as the sexpert on staff and for the community, her focus is to connect the harm of sex-negative anti-abortion rhetoric into a wider sex-positive reproductive justice framework where marginalized people are not shamed and robbed of their autonomy. She believes that when Black, Indigenous, and other people of color experience pleasure on their own terms, it’s an act of protest, but most importantly--self-care.

Be sure to follow Irma's sex education account on Instagram @Sexedwithirma. Also make sure you are following BFR on Instagram @Blackfeministrants and Twitter @Blackfemrants. 

BFR sits down with content creator, illustrator, artist, and activist Caitlin Blunnie to talk about combining art with Reproductive Justice! Caitlin also talks about how white people can take up RJ work without taking over the movement or misusing terms as well as how to deal with burnout and feelings of inadequacy as a creator. 

Be sure to follow her on Instagram @Liberaljane and Twitter @liberaljanee. Also follow BFR on Instagram @Blackfeministrants and Twitter @blackfemrants

Caitlin Blunnie (she/hers) is a passionate reproductive justice activist, and artist living in Northern Virginia. She first discovered her passion for grassroots organizing while advocating for survivors’ rights on her college campus. It was there that Caitlin saw how oppression was interconnected, and how her experience growing up in a low-income household wasn’t unique, but a part of a much larger, systemic problem. It was that experience that propelled her into organizing for reproductive justice.

Since graduating, Caitlin has dedicated her life to expanding access to abortion through her art and activism. Professionally, Caitlin is the Lead organizer with Reproaction, a national reproductive justice organization. Caitlin also serves as the Vice President of the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund Board of Directors.

Through her illustration practice, Caitlin works to eliminate abortion stigma through education and art. She has worked with a number of organizations, including Oxfam International, Tumblr’s ‘Creatrs Project,’ and Marie Stopes International. Caitlin’s work can be found on social media under the handle @LiberalJane, a childhood nickname she has reclaimed.

Join BFR for a Black feminist rant on the politics of a post racial society, the concept of color blindness and the controversy surrounding affirmative action. 

Check out BFR's website blackfeministrants.com and follow BFR on Instagram @Blackfeministrants and Twitter @Blackfemrants

Works Mentioned: 

Racial Colorblindness: Emergence, Practice, and Implications

The Structure of Racism in Color-Blind, Post Racial America

BFR had the pleasure of speaking with Feminist Women's Health Center's Executive Director Kwajelyn Jackson. Kwajelyn shared her unique experience of changing career fields from finance to social justice as well as her RJ story and why it is important to embody different forms of leadership than what we have historically seen. 

Follow BFR on Instagram @Blackfeministrants and Twitter @Blackfemrants and visit the website blackfeministrants.com 

In this episode BFR discusses social justice activism in the age of social media and how the recent radicalization of some people and the   increase in social justice instagram pages has changed what successful social justice organizing looks like. LaKia also speaks about her own issues with comparisons and hyper-productivity especially in the new social media/social justice landscape. 

Be sure to follow BFR on Instagram @blackfeministrants and Twitter @Blackfemrants and check out the website blackfeministrants.com 

Join BFR in a discussion with SisterSong's Lead Trainer Christian Adams who is co-planning the Reproductive Justice Summer Institute with BFR Host, LaKia Williams. In this episode Adams talks about her RJ story which includes, teenage pregnancy, abortion, and medical neglect. We also talk about organizing for Reproductive Justice virtually in the COVID-19 era and the importance of including young people in the movement. 

Don't forget to register for the week long RJ Summer Institute being held next week, the topics include: an Intro to RJ, Building an Intergenerational Movement, Disrupting White Supremacy Culture, State-based Organizing, and Faith and RJ. 

Follow BFR on Instagram @blackfeministrants and Twitter @blackfemrants and check out the new website at blackfeministrants.com 

In this episode of BFR, host LaKia discusses imposter syndrome and her experiences with it as a young Black woman attending a Predominantly White Institution. The conversation evolves into one about respectability politics and so much more! Be sure to follow BFR on Instagram @blackfeministrants and Twitter @blackfemrants

Article Mentioned: Why Imposter Syndrome Is Worse for Women of Color https://zora.medium.com/why-imposter-syndrome-is-worse-for-women-of-color-3bcf37335405

BFR interviews SisterSong's Executive Director Monica Raye Simpson. SisterSong: The National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective was formed in 1997 by 16 women of color organizations. Monica Raye Simpson tells listeners about her trajectory into the reproductive justice framework, her personal RJ story, her experiences of imposter syndrome, and how she and SisterSong navigate the performativity of self-proclaimed RJ activist who don't do the work. You can learn more about SisterSong and how to get involved by visiting their site, sistersong.net and you can follow Monica on Instagram @activistmonicaraye

Please follow Black Feminist Rants on Instagram @BlackFeministRants

In this episode of BFR Host LaKia discusses the differences between the Reproductive Justice and Pro-Choice movements and why it is important to be intentional with the words we use. LaKia also discusses not only learning to be anti-racist but actively being anti-racist in our relationships and work settings. This episode references Dorothy Roberts’ article Reproductive Justice, Not Just Rights from Dissent Magazine and Karen Washington’s article on Food apartheid. Both articles are cited below. Follow BFR on instagram @blackfeministrants

Citations:

Food apartheid: The root of the problem with America’s groceries | Society | The Guardian. (2018). Retrieved July 15, 2020, from      https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/food-apartheid-food-deserts-racism-inequality-america-karen-washington-interview

Reproductive Justice, Not Just Rights. (2015). Dissent Magazine. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/reproductive-justice-not-just-rights

In this episode BFR has a conversation with Loretta Ross, one of the founding mothers of Reproductive Justice. Ross discusses her RJ story, Black Feminist Theory, her path to activism, transformative justice, abolition, and so much more. We also discuss how the Reproductive Justice framework was birthed. You can visit her website to learn more about her activism and scholarship. 

Loretta Ross is a nationally-recognized trainer on using the transformative power of Reproductive Justice to build a Human Rights movement that includes everyone.  Ms. Ross is an expert on women’s issues, hate groups, racism and intolerance, human rights, and violence against women. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of social justice issues and how this affects social change and service delivery in all movements.

Loretta is a rape survivor, was forced to raise a child born of incest, and she is also a survivor of sterilization abuse. She is a model of how to survive and thrive despite the traumas that disproportionately affect low-income women of color. She serves as a consultant for Smith College, collecting oral histories of feminists of color for the Sophia Smith Collection which also contains her personal archives (see https://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/pwv/pwv-ross.html).  She is a mother, grandmother and a great-grandmother.

Ms. Ross was National Co-Director of the April 25, 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants. As part of a nearly five-decade history in social justice activism, between 1996-2004, she was the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE) in Atlanta, Georgia. Before that, she was the Program Research Director at the Center for Democratic Renewal/National Anti-Klan Network where she led projects researching hate groups, and working against all forms of bigotry with universities, schools, and community groups. She launched the Women of Color Program for the National Organization for Women (NOW) in the 1980s, and led delegations of women of color to many international conferences on women's issues and human rights. She was one of the first African American women to direct a rape crisis center in the 1970s, launching her career by pioneering work on violence against women.

Loretta Ross, Reproductive Justice, Abortion, Rape, Rape survivor, Activist, Feminist, Black Feminism, Black Feminist Theory