Care, Black Womanhood, Trauma, and the City : Three Silhouettes

Abstract

To be Black and to be woman is to be a caretaker. Situated at the convergence of multiple systems of oppression and barriers to access, taking care is foundational to the ways through which Black women navigate space. Through oral history, poetic transcription, and ethnographic analysis, this paper seeks to reflect on how the COVID pandemic impacted the lives of those intimate with the labor of care, which is to say, Black women. Specifically, I engage with the oral histories of Ogemdi, Carmelita, and Rose as cultural performances in order to co-performatively bear witness to three narratives of care work, Black womanhood, trauma, and the city.