Home > JFS > Iss. 18 (2021)

Post-Trump Intersections and “Post-Racial” Reflections: A Black Feminist Analysis of Black Women and Navigating Structured Inequality in the U.S., 2012-2017

Jasmine K. Cooper, Ph.D., University of Maryland at BaltimoreFollow

Abstract

Barely a decade ago, the 2008 and 2012 elections of President Barack Obama to the U.S. Executive Office propelled questions about whether the U.S. had overcome its racially oppressive history, through the presidency of a political centrist of African descent. The premature celebrations of racial transcendence in were countered shortly thereafter by the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2016. The latter was accomplished partly by using “dog-whistle politics” to covertly (and overtly) bolster a tide of racialized political backlash to the prior administration. Ultimately, just after post-racialism dominated discussions on U.S. racial attitudes, an openly white supremacist, misogynistic national affect presently coincides with anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-Black legislation. Further, under an inflammatory and oppressive administration, everyday incarnations of inequity expand as concerns for marginalized groups. This is particularly true for those subject to multiple and simultaneous forms of structured inequality – of interest to this project are Black women. In this project, I employ twenty-one semi-structured interviews with Black American women aged 22-50 drawn between 2011/2012 and in 2017. Building on earlier Black feminist theory, this article captures Black women’s lived experiences navigating racism, classism, and sexism during the aforementioned political transition. Like many other Black feminist theorists, I argue that Black women are subject to, and still contend with these intersecting structures. Further, in line with other Black feminist approaches, the project elucidates ways shared lived experiences provide windows into everyday manifestations of structured inequality.

Recommended Citation

Cooper, Ph.D., Jasmine K.. 2021. "Post-Trump Intersections and “Post-Racial” Reflections: A Black Feminist Analysis of Black Women and Navigating Structured Inequality in the U.S., 2012-2017." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 18 (Spring): 1-23. 10.23860/jfs.2021.18.01.