::Black feminist thought (BFT)::

BFT as a methodology, to my understanding, moves us beyond just including Black women in research. Like if BFT were a pedagogy, it would not just be about placing a few books about Harriet Tubman around the classroom. Perhaps, that might be step one, but that is not enough. If you are genuine in your love for Black women and their intellectuality, then you must rely on them for sight. Because your eyes will deceive you. If you are genuine in your love for Black women, when they say something, you must listen; you must believe them. Black women are powerful and have a heightened sense of sight-they can see through all the bullshit. So, for me adopting BFT as a methodology requires that I sit down or move out of the way. That moving out of the way can take many different forms but oftentimes it is me intentionally silencing or decentering myself, so that the interpretations of the world from Black women positionalities can take center stage. Interpretations that “resist by disallowing dominant, mainstream interpretations of who they are to overshadow, minimize, or discredit their truths” (Patterson, Kinloch, Burkhard, Randall, & Howard, 2016, p.58). And though I do not identify as a Black woman, I am a product of Black Feminist Thought. This ideology and intellectuality raised me. And though I may not have been afforded much privilege or power, I willingly yield what I do have to Black women, and encourage them to stand and “collaborate with other Black women to name, share, and validate their multiple truths by embracing the influence of black feminist epistemologies in their lives to embody a methodology that privileges black women’s embodied ways of knowing” (Patterson, Kinloch, Burkhard, Randall, & Howard, 2016, p.70).

I mean, imagine the possibilities that would arise if Jan, Latisha, Beyoncé, Yolanda, and Kamilia and their mothers participated in a project together or created something in tandem with other Black queens-one beautiful Black sister with another; with many.

What I have tried to do above with the letters to some of the important Black women in my life, letters I unfortunately never sent, is to express my love for them publicly. At the same time, it is an explanation of my feeling of connectedness to Black women. Again, though I am not a Black woman, I have succeeded in forming a connection with them not based on sameness, but based on my belief that when I am with them I will be understood- which is selfish. They humanize me. And I hope that in my research, I can do the same with, through, and dare I say it, for, them.