Assata is Here: (Dis)Locating Gender in Black Studies

Abstract

This article employs the tools of Black Studies to critical engage Assata: An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur and aspects of Shakur’s political legacy. Specifically, this article draws upon Black feminist critiques of gender theory to interrogate how Assata and the altering of Shakur’s image elucidate the distinction between Human and Black gender. Thus, I argue the antiblack nature of the (un)gendering of Shakur, which extends from the text into the present, demonstrates the unrelenting hold of slavery on its after/life. In this respect, inheriting Black Studies must contend with the irreconcilability of antiblack (un)gendering violence as it expands beyond the individual into Blackness.