When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip Hop Feminist Breaks It Down

When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost is a hardcore dose of post-feminist funk — written for the post-civil rights, post-feminist, post-soul children of hip-hop. Doing away with the tired victim/oppressor models that often dominate contemporary feminist discourse, this revolutionary book speaks to a generation of women for whom the issues of gender, sex, race, love and relationships are not simple black-and-white terms.

Journalist Joan Morgan isn't afraid to ask tough questions. Here she challenges a feminism that vehemently defends women's reproductive rights but ignores men's lack of reproductive choice. And she refuses to discuss the physical and emotional damage of sexism without examining the utterly foul and unloving ways women sometimes treat each other.

Forthright and controversial, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost offers a feminism committed to "keeping it real." It is that magical intersection where contrary voices meet — the juncture where "truth is no longer black and white but subtle, intriguing shades of gray."

A new voice of the hip-hop generation speaks out about the reality of being a black woman in America today.

In this fresh, funky, and ferociously honest book, award-winning journalist Joan Morgan bravely probes the complex issues facing African-American women in today's world: a world where feminists often have not-so-clandestine affairs with the most sexist of men; where women who treasure their independence often prefer men who pick up the tab; and where the deluge of babymothers and babyfathers reminds black women who long for marriage that traditional nuclear families are a reality for less than 40 percent of the African-American population.

Morgan offers a feminism committed to "keeping it real"--where "truth is no longer black and white but subtle, intriguing shades of gray."

Joan Morgan began her writing career at The Village Voice. A staff writer at Vibe magazine for three years, she has also written extensively about music and gender issues for The New York Times, Ms., Madison, Interview, and Spin magazine, where she was a contributing editor and columnist. Morgan is presently a contributing writer for Essence and Notorious. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

Contents

intro.: dress up

the f-word

hip-hop feminist

from fly-girls to bitches and hos

strongblackwomen

strongblackwomen -n- endangeredblackmen...this is not a love story

lovenote

babymother

chickenhead envy

one last thing before I go

source notes

index