University Honors

Research has indicated the development of identity under gendered racist oppression inBlack women in the United States is unique due to the intersection of their dual marginalizedsocial status and the resulting unique multifaceted approach to assimilating and combatingnormative narratives of prototypical ideas on race and gender (Williams & Lewis, 2021; Cooleyet. al, 2018). The inherent contradictions between racialized stereotypes of Blackness and that ofwomanhood effectively others Black American women and this othering is exacerbated withinthe confines of the racial (and patriarchal) American Competitive Capitalism (Marsh, 2015;Fletcher Jr, 2020; Albee & Perry, 1998; Bernard, 2016;Brown, 1975; Wills, 2018; Schwartz,2007). This research builds upon the idea that the intersection of racism and sexism (this authorargues capitalism as well) has a particular, unparalleled influence on the development of Blackfemale identity. Understanding of the oppression of Black women in white normative Westernspaces has seminal policy implications on disparities in medical care, mental health, professionalopportunity, natural hair acceptance, etc. This creative research project seeks to create an originalvisual representation of the development of gendered racial identity and gendered racialideologies used to navigate the construction of individual identities in Black women as a result oftheir tri categoric systemic oppression. Nuanced and diverse representation of Black women invisual arts media serves to provide Black American women social space to be three dimensionalbeings despite their non prototypical nature in Western, white normative, capitalist societies (andthe media subsequently created in such societies).