Ride Or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well-Being of Black Women

ISBN: 0306874679

Author: Shanita Hubbard

A feminist manifesto from sociologist and journalist Shanita Hubbard that mixes cultural criticism and pop culture history to dissect how hip hop has sidelined Black women's identity and emotional wellbeing. As a Black feminist who writes extensively about misogynoir and social justice, Shanita Hubbard's relationship with hip-hop has always been complicated. For Hubbard--and many Black people--hip-hop is a beloved genre of music that offers a voice against injustice, a means to elevate cultural consciousness, and, like all music, a reason to dance. But one day, while listening to the song "One Love" Hubbard became increasingly unsettled as one of her favorite rappers told a story about the injustice of mass incarceration of Black men but did not mention the painful truths of the Black women who often must support them and their children through financial and emotional hardship. In fact it, was the opposite, he reduced them to two categories -unsupported lovers or broken-hearted mothers. Hubbard surmised that in her community--and by extension in hip-hop-- there is a hierarchy dictating whose lived experiences takes priority. Ride-Or-Die comes as a fervent disruption to the notion replayed in hip hop that Black women are not worth healthy love and care unless they live up to impossible, male-defined standards of womanhood. In a combination of personal narrative and cultural criticism, Hubbard uses hip-hop as a vehicle to explore social issues that distinctly affect Black women but are consistently left out of dialogues about race, gender, and history in and out of Black communities. She deconstructs the archetypes that have been put upon Black women like the "ride or die chick" who sticks with her man through everything and narrow versions of "Black girl magic" that are laced with respectability politics. Hubbard's sociological analysis reveals how these tropes cause more harm than good, leading to gender-based violence, silent suffering, and even suicidal ideation.