understanding some big -isms with SUSU
at SUSU we talk about Black womanism a lot, intentionally. it’s our lineage of thought and spirituality that grounds everything we do in connection with the land and each other. below are a set of terms we use often, and ones we use less often but are useful to name in order to make some important distinctions. read our previous post, “awakening a Black womanist lens during women’s history month.”
feminism
(generally speaking) led by white, middle-class women and focused on voting rights, property rights, and access to education. historically excluded or marginalized Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color
Black feminism
Black women experience overlapping systems of oppression, racism, sexism, classism, and others, that cannot be separated. Black feminism critiques mainstream feminism for ignoring race and critiques Black liberation movements for ignoring gender.
Black womanism
developed by Alice Walker in the 1980s in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983), emphasizes healing, culture, spirituality, and relational life centered on Black women’s and Black people’s lived experience. at SUSU, we express Black womanism through land-based practices, spiritual traditions, care networks, intergenerational knowledge, and community-centered leadership. in our lens of Black womanism, we honor and include all genders.
futurism (general)
from early 20th-century european art movements focused on speed, technology, and modernity, very distinct from how we talk about futurism at SUSU. in BIPOC communities, futurism is less about technology and more about survival, continuity, and transformation.
Afro-futurism
popularized by Mark Dery (1990s), but long, long predates the term through Black speculative work, music, and cosmology. it’s about Black people imagining and creating futures that are distinct and escape histories of slavery, displacement, and exclusion from dominant narratives.
Indigenous futurism
a sibling of Afro-futurism that often centers sovereignty and land return, emerging from Indigenous sovereignty movements and resistance to settler colonialism. it exists in land back movements, language revitalization, Indigenous science and ecological stewardship, speculative literature, and governance models.
how it fits together
Black womanism grounds Afro- and Indigenous futurisms in ideas of sanctuary, Homeplace, embodied memory as living Black archive, spirituality as a knowledge system, and community as our primary form of governance. so when we say “imagine this…” at SUSU, we’re talking about how futurism shows up in farms, kitchens, rituals, and community spaces
reflection:
what thought lineages are present in your life and practice? what do you want to learn teach dream absorb next?
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