Dalia Elsayed:
My inspiration
I first encountered the work of bell hooks in my first year of graduate school. Her writing gave me access to a language that expresses Black girlhood and womanhood. While she writes from the perspective of a Black woman from the American South, her words and life speak to many Black women globally.
How does race, gender, class and other categories of identity and oppression impact Black women’s experiences in academic spaces?
I have been inspired by many Black women in my life, from my mother and friends to Black feminist authors, scholars and poets. These Black women fuel my work and it is through various essays, poems and conversations with other Black women that I have come to realize that our blackness and gender identity are central to our interactions with the world around us. We often find ourselves asking the question "what does it mean to be a Black woman?" to which we have different answers that are validated by each other's experiences and existence in different spaces.