As a twenty-something whose short life has grown alongside that of the Internet and social media, I honestly didn’t think that a book on the benefits of social media would tell me much that I didn’t already know. But Feminista Jones’s Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets is not just a lesson on the tools used by online communities. It’s an origin story.
“Those most denied access to the fundamental rights are now proprietors of the most discourse of our time.”
Jones is a social worker, activist, writer, and cultural commentator with a huge Twitter following. Reclaiming Our Space details the ways that black feminism has evolved by changing with the times. Jones makes it clear that Twitter did not give birth to black feminism, but that it catapulted decades of work into the mainstream.
“Freedom of speech takes on a new meaning when those most denied access to the fundamental rights are now proprietors of the most discourse of our time,” she writes.
Highlighted throughout are social justice movements that have grown because of social media, including #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and #WhyIStayed. But Jones reminds us that Tarana Burke started the Me Too movement ten years before someone tweeted it as a hashtag.
Interwoven with Jones’s musing on the Internet is her own story. She gives us tidbits of her past with religion, sexuality, high school literary classes, blogging, early feminist studies, AOL messaging, family, and more. This helps us understand not just the growth of black feminism but of a black feminist. She elaborates on her upbringing as a transphobe, reminding us that the best way to be intersectional in our feminist practices is to have humility and to listen to others—something social media is great at fostering.
“It makes sense to me, then, that platforms designed to encourage a call-and-response style of communication would draw in black women, especially, and would be ripe for evolution through our contributions,” she says about the way Twitter lets users communicate.
Reclaiming Our Space demonstrates that real change and growth, within movements and within individuals, is not decided on any one thread, but by multiple strands weaving together to create a force to be reckoned with.