SCMAker

• Maker: Tatyana Booz
• Genre: E-Book; Manifesto
• Level: Graduate
• Program: Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media
• Course: WRIT 5340: Multimodality & Digital Media
• Instructor: Dr. Eric Mason
• Semester Created: Winter 2021

Description:

From the mammies, sapphires, and jezebel figures, often, African-American women are subject to poster children for poise, class, and strength. If not displaying all of these characteristics, they are dogged by the “angry black woman” trope. They are not afforded the same opportunities to share their opinions and injustices without receiving the “angry black woman label.” Inspired by the Serena Williams’ controversy, this manifesto is a call to action for the African-American women that have been labeled angry to take the word and repurpose it as a way to push back against societal stereotypes. This trope of the “angry black woman” has been pervasive in modern media for centuries. There is hope that this manifesto will shed light on what it is to be an African-American woman in America. This project was designed in Canva and then uploaded to flipsnack.com to mimic the format of an e-book. Here is the link:

https://www.flipsnack.com/tboozmanifesto/to-freedom-the-black-girl-manifesto-hp3gfa0n30.html 

Reflection:

This project was inspired by a class activity that Aolani and I created during Week 5, which focused on technology and the art of the manifesto. Part of the class activity was to create a short manifesto of one’s choice. Following this activity, I thought that such a project would be great to express everything I have ever felt as an African-American woman and push against the boundaries of academic writing. It is easy to want to stay away from a topic such as race and gender to be heavily politicized. I felt as if a manifesto is a perfect platform for me to challenge myself to discuss an issue near and dear to me as an African-American woman.  

In academia, sometimes, our thoughts have to be polite, mindful and avoid controversy. A manifesto challenges that academic sphere and allows students to put their voices into their work finally. Inspired by Alison Jaggar’s idea of “outlaw emotions,” this manifesto strives to offer new society views for African-American women. For instance, Jaggar states that “the emotional responses of oppressed people in general, and often of women, in particular, are more likely to be appropriate than the emotional responses of the dominant class. That is, they are more likely to incorporate reliable appraisals of situations” (182). This quote suggests that African-American women who are continuously facing strife regarding their hair, dress, and language have every right to be up; therefore more, pinning such a label on them questions the validity of their grievances. 

According to Jaggar, our society shouldn’t dismiss outlaw emotions because they are unconventional; they should be acknowledged and reflected upon concerning the conventional feelings expressed by a person who does not share the same identity as that of an African-American woman. One of the difficulties that I came across was making the manifesto personable as well as credible. I used quotes from family and friends but, I worry that readers would not view it as reputable since it is not a public figure. On the other hand, I believe that the manifesto genre lends its hands to being unconventional.