A review by readingrecsfromjoy
Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets by Feminista Jones

5.0

Whew! What can I say? I’ve been following Feminista Jones on Twitter for a long while now, and I’ve always loved her witty humor and intelligence. I knew reading her book would be incredibly rewarding and I was correct. Jones’s deep roots in Black Feminism means that every single topic she tackles is thoroughly contextualized within those movements. Her existence at the intersection of so many marginalized communities and her frank approach to addressing bigotry within movements makes it clear that internet activism naturally leads people to connect with each other offline and translates to real world action and therefore progress. She chronicles not only her own education and background in order to understand her perspective, but also many online movements started and led by Black Feminists that resulted in tangible positive change in our country and the world. As someone who has followed her and many of the people she references in the book, it is exciting to read more deeply about movements and online trending topics that I was able to witness from the sidelines as they happened. If you don’t yet follow her and the folks she mentions, it is not too late! I urge you to follow them now. This text is great for anyone looking to expand their understanding of Black Feminist work (as everyone should be as a first step to creating change) and if you’re interested in how technology and social media is exposing long-standing forms of bigotry and racial terrorism AND empowering folks to be able to speak out, form coalitions, and collectively organize to fight against that bigotry, you can’t miss it.