Jenn M. Jackson

Black Women Taught Us by Jenn M Jackson offers every reader valuable insight and lessons that go far beyond Black feminism.

Through examining the lives of ten women and the Combahee River Collective and using each to highlight a particular quality they taught Jackson, we are also able to learn. They incorporate their own life experiences into the book, which makes it both personal and societal (though the two aren't truly two separate things, individuals make up society after all).

Throughout US history Black women were often tasked with teaching (in fact, often raising) white children, so they have involuntarily been (trying) to teach us for a long time. Yet the deeper lessons rarely took root and the interlocking systems of oppression continued unabated. In this book, even though white readers probably aren't the target readership, the deeper lessons are made explicit. Those lessons need to go well beyond simply "a better understanding" of the past and even the present. They need to teach white readers that when a person of color, a woman, a gender nonconforming person stands up for their rights and their feelings, it is not an attack on you, it is a self-affirming act and, if there is an attack, it is on the system that lets so many wrongs go unnoticed.

I would highly recommend this to readers who care about where our society is going. Whether your takeaway is gaining a better sense of belonging, of knowing you're not alone in your struggles, or a better understanding of how those oppressed by our structural norms are working to improve their lives, and by extension everyone's lives, this book gives accessible explanations and, yes, lessons. Lessons for us all.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (más)