Black Girl Magic Beyond the Hashtag: Twenty-First-Century Acts of Self-Definition

217 Pages·2019·10.714 MB·English

by  Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, Duchess Harris

BLACK GIRL MAGIC BEYOND THE HASHTAG
THE FEMINIST WIRE BOOKS
Connecting Feminisms, Race, and Social Justice
SERIES EDITORS
Monica J. Casper, Tamura A. Lomax, and Darnell L. Moore
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brittney Cooper, Aimee Cox, Keri Day, Suzanne Dovi, Stephanie Gilmore,
Kiese Laymon, David J. Leonard, Heidi R. Lewis, Nakisha Lewis, Adela C. Licona,
Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., Joseph Osmundson, Aishah Shahidah Simmons,
Stephanie Troutman, Heather M. Turcotte
ALSO IN THE FEMINIST WIRE BOOKS
The Chicana Motherwork Anthology, edited by Cecilia Caballero, Yvette Martinez-Vu,
Judith C. Pérez- Torres, Michelle Téllez, and Christine Vega
Them Goon Rules: Fugitive Essays on Radical Black Feminism, by Marquis Bey
B L A C K G I R L
M A G I C
B E Y O N D T H E
H A S H TA G
Twenty-First-Century
Acts of Self-Definition
EDITED BY
JULIA S. JORDAN-ZACHERY
DUCHESS HARRIS
AND
Foreword by Janell Hobson
Afterword by Tammy Owens
The University of Arizona Press
www .uapress .arizona .edu
© 2019 by The Arizona Board of Regents
All rights reserved. Published 2019
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8165- 3953- 6 (paper)
Cover design by Leigh McDonald
Cover art: Archetype of a 5 Star by Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Rubell Family Collection,
courtesy of Kravets Wehby Gallery
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data are available at the Library of Congress.
Printed in the United States of America
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
To the Black women who worked tirelessly for me
to experience “magic,” thank you. To my daughter,
Makeen, for pushing me to think critically, thanks.
—JULIA JORDAN-ZACHERY
For my favorite Black girl: Avi Noelle Thomas
—DUCHESS HARRIS

CONTENTS
Foreword ix
JANELL HOBSON
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction. We Are Magic AND We Are Real:
Exploring the Politics of Black Femmes, Girls, and
Women’s Self- Articulation 3
JULIA S. JORDAN- ZACHERY AND DUCHESS HARRIS
1. Movement Makers: A Historical Analysis of
Black Women’s Magic in Social Movement Formation 41
RASHIDA L. HARRISON
2. “I Can Only Do Me”: African American, Caribbean
American, and West African Girls’ Transnational
Nature of Self- Articulation 60
LECONTÉ J. DILL, SHAVAUN S. SUTTON, BIANCA RIVERA,
AND ABENA AMORY- POWELL
viii Contents
3. Identity in Formation: Black Girl Critical Literacies
in Independent Schools 80
CHARLOTTE E. JACOBS
4. What We Know and How We Know It?
Defining Black Girlhood Spirituality 105
PORSHÉ R. GARNER
5. Conjuring Ghosts: Black Girlhood Hauntings
and Speculative Performances of Reappearances 126
JESSICA L. ROBINSON
6. What Does #BlackGirlMagic Look Like?
The Aesthetics of Black Women’s Afropunk Citizenship 147
MARLO D. DAVID
7. Daughter Mother: An Intergenerational Conversation
on the Meaning of #BlackGirlMagic 170
MAKEEN J. ZACHERY AND JULIA S. JORDAN-ZACHERY
Afterword: BlackGirlMagic Is Real 184
TAMMY OWENS
Contributors 187
Index 193
FOREWORD
Janell Hobson
One would think the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic belongs to a commu-
nity of Black women and girls. That is until both Essence magazine
and Beverly Bond’s Black Girls Rock! organization entered a trade-
mark dispute for copyright ownership over the slogan in 2017. Some-
how, CaShawn Thompson— credited with the slogan “Black Girls are
Magic,” which became a T-s hirt logo that she designed— disappeared
from the conversation, even though the viral hashtag #BlackGirl-
Magic arrived on the scene of Black Twitter soon after Thompson’s
logo and within the year of the creation of #BlackLivesMatter in 2013,
which was first coined by three Black women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse
Cullors, and Opal Tometi.
We may well debate just who “owns” the #BlackGirlMagic expres-
sion— as a shorthand description for any Black woman stylishly pos-
ing for Instagram selfies or fabulously dominating her profession if
she happens to be a public figure in entertainment, sports, politics,
activism, or the academy— but there is no doubt that it has entered
the larger public domain empowering Black women and girls. Hashtag
or trademark, personal or collective expression, #BlackGirlMagic is
the articulation of the resolve and persistence of Black women and