Julia Chinyere Oparah
Transformational Leader * Social Justice Educator * Activist Scholar
books
“With its commitment to placing black women at the center of the conversation and scholarship about their own lives and the value it places on agency, activism, and putting scholarship to work for the purpose of social change, Birthing Justice makes an important and much-needed contribution to the small but growing number of books examining reproductive justice. This anthology of black women’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth is long overdue.”
―Jeanne Flavin, Fordham University, author of Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America.
"Battling Over Birth: Black Women and the Maternal Health Care Crisis reveals hard truths— powerful findings on the role of racism, coercion, inadequate prenatal care, the pressures undermining breastfeeding and the lack of access to alternatives to a broken maternal health-care system as key threads of black women’s birth experiences."
—Kimberly Seals Allers, MS, author, The Big Letdown
This book explores what happens when scholars create active engagements between the academy and communities of resistance. In so doing, it suggests a new direction for antiracist and feminist scholarship, rejecting models of academic radicalism that remain unaccountable to grassroots social movements and exploring the community and the academy as interlinked sites of struggle.
"a resounding, even inspiring, argument for activist scholarship as an effective mode of social change to the many forms of inequity and oppression—such as racism, homophobia, and imperialism—occurring in today's world" Radical Teacher
Transracially adopted writers from around the world tackle difficult questions about how to survive the racist and ethnocentric worlds they inhabit, what connects the countries relinquishing their children to the countries importing them, why poor families of color have their children removed rather than supported—about who, ultimately, they are. In their inquiry, they unseat conventional understandings of adoption politics, ultimately reframing the controversy as a debate that encompasses human rights, peace, and reproductive justice.
“Outsiders Within is not an easy read, nor should it be. These authors dare to say that one has lived through, possibly even benefited from, a broken system. It will have an uncomfortable and meaningful impact on adoptive parents and those involved in the world of transracial adoption... Outsiders Within makes me rethink my own assumptions—about family, about nation, about race, about belonging. Ultimately, this anthology provides the breathtaking power of artful politics and the breath-giving possibility for change.”
Juliana Hu Pegues, artist and critic
"An original, smart, and provocative volume, Global Lockdown makes a compelling case for the convergence of abolitionist prison and anti-globalization work in the age of global capitalism, neoliberalism, and U.S. economic and political hegemony. An urgent wakeup call for scholars, activists, and social justice workers, this volume crafts a visionary and wide-ranging anti-racist, transnational feminist praxis. A critical book for these critical times." Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism Without Borders
"Sudbury's powerful and persuasive edited volume, Global Lockdown, outlines in striking detail how prisons have become the international warehouses for oppressing women. Sudbury and her contributors have established in this work an exceptional resource for understanding the new political economy of criminal injustice that today undermines democratic institutions and disempowers women of color across the Global South." Manning Marable, author of The Great Wells of Democracy: Race in American Life
The only book documenting the history of the black women's movement in Britain, Other Kinds of Dreams provides an invaluable insight into the political activity of black and Asian women. The book breaks new ground by destroying the misconception that black and Asian women lack political involvement, integrating gender into the study of black and Asian political participation, exploring the potential for alliances between black women and progressive black men and examining black women activists' perception and experiences of white feminism. Other Kinds of Dreams also questions the homogeneity of the term "black" and asks whether increasing social stratification within black communities undermines this unity.
"As we trek into the next millennium, asserting, maintaining, and defending our humanity in the face of global capital, we very much need Other Kinds of Dreams." Angela Y. Davis, from the foreword.
Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology is an anthology of critical writings demanding that we address violence against women of color in all its forms, including interpersonal violence, such as sexual and domestic violence, and state violence, such as police brutality, militarism, attacks on immigrants and Indian treaty rights, the proliferation of prisons, economic neo-colonialism, and violence from the medical industry.
Color of Violence is co-edited by the Incite! collective, and presents the fierce and vital writing of 33 visionary radical feminists of color.
In the tradition of This Bridge Called My Back, Color of Violence is an urgent, bold, and essential intervention in the war against women of color, their communities, and, ultimately, us all.
