Connections Quarterly Summer 2019 - Gender | Page 22

L E SSON S FR O M A GE NDE R S T UD I ES C L AS S R O O M Continued from page 11 tensions, and lifting up women like Truth, Terrell, and Burke who are to thank for much of the progress that occurred, seems like a good place to start. Lesson #4: Let Students Lead Jahari Shelton, SFS ‘19 As is consistent with my spiritual journey, I have spent Winter Break reflecting. In my sa- cred time, I have noticed that some of the most salient moments in my life happened in 2018 over the weeks I spent in the Wom- en’s and Gender Studies seminar. Gender Studies, as it is affectionately called at our institution, exists to guide young people through the history and context of sexual- ity, gender, and the intersecting social con- structs that shape our lives and affect our livelihood on a daily basis. That is probably what I value most about the moments I’ve shared with others in the group: the respect “...it felt extremely important for me to have control over the discussion of my culture, especially in the elite, white normative environment of the private school classroom.” and integrity, honoring the experiences of those different from ourselves as well as those not represented by the array of faces sitting in the chairs. But that does not mean it came easy. As an African-American male who is heterosexual, religious, and from a working-class family, I always feel respon- sible for honoring each part of my identity, especially those that subject me to an op- pressed class. And I particularly worried about entering a space like Gender Studies where I assumed we would focus on gender rather than race and class. Fortunately, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, Kim- berlé Crenshaw, the Combahee River Collec- tive, and especially Brittany Cooper and the Crunk Feminist Collective proved me wrong. Getting to lead class on essays from the Crunk Feminist Collective (CFC) is still the topic and moment from class I hold closest to my heart. For my seminar lead on Hip-Hop Feminism, my peers and I read three articles from The Crunk Feminist Collection 10 : “Do We Need A Body Count to Count?,” “My Brother’s Keep- er and the Co-optation of Intersectional- ity,” and “Disrespectability Politics: On Jay Z’s Bitch, Beyonce’s ‘Fly’ Ass, and Black Girl Blue.” Within the seminar itself, we explored hip- hop feminism as a discursive space where Black women have written themselves into existence, using their own language on their own terms. We covered violence against Black women, images of Black women in 10. Cooper, Brittney C, Susana M. Morris, and Robin M. Boylorn, The Crunk Feminist Collection (New York: Feminist Press, 2017). Page 20 Summer 2019 CSEE Connections