Day 17: something that has made a huge impact on my life recently

Day 17 - A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently


Ooooo a toughie.... i'm gonna go with black feminist writers. Without them, my thesis would not have been possible. Authors like...

Patricia Hill Collins....no relation

bell hooks

Noliwe Rooks

Lanita Jacobs-Huey

......to name a few. What they have written has provided me with a solid base for my thesis on black female athletes and their hair. Furthermore, what they have not written has left a space for me to explore for my project. Their works have inspired me and made me really reflect on my own subjectivity/positionality and my own actions which has fueled my interest in empowering women and enacting social change.  It seems like so many classes I took and article I read all seemed to fall into place at the right time.  When I was lacking a theoretical backbone to my project, bell hooks' Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992) pretty much fell off the shelf and into my lap and opened up to a quote:

...for black people the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves or how we are seen is so intense that it rends us. It rips and tears at the seams of our efforts to construct self and identity. (hooks, 1992, p. 4)

....and from there the I began to research the construction of cultural identities in sport through black female athletes and their hair. I could go on for days about the influence of these authors on my understanding of the embodiment of cultural values and norms within and on the black female body but I should really go write my thesis as it is due in a month and 7 days!! Can't believe I could actually be done with college soon.....6 years is a long time. Good time, but a long time.