Dr. Dorothy Roberts: 'Colonizing and Decolonizing Black Women’s Bodies'

Controlling Sexuality & Reproduction: Past & Present, Dr. Dorothy Roberts Closing Keynote Address, August 14, 2015.

I will explore the history of state appropriation of black women’s bodies in the United States to systematically punish these women and also to help maintain unjust hierarchies of power, implement repressive policies, and produce a normative citizenry. Today, attributing social inequality to black women’s sexuality and childbearing furthers race, gender, class, and disability oppression in the context of neoliberalism by legitimizing intensified state deprivation, surveillance, and violence. For example, the prison and foster care systems work together to punish black mothers while blaming them for their own disadvantaged social positions and the excessive policing of their communities. A black feminist intersectional analysis illuminates the mechanisms of colonization more broadly and points the way to collaborative decolonizing movement strategies.