Patricia Collins Formation Analysis

Through Patricia Collins’: Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, can be applied to Beyonce’s own song: Formation. Through this particular song and music video, Beyonce demonstrates in several ways the empowerment of African American women through her lyrics and the images she portrays in her own music video. Similarly, Patricia Collins’ black feminist thought relates to this form of empowerment through her own critical analysis.

In comparing the writings of Patricia Collins to Beyonce’s own song and music video of Formation, both of these composed works display ways in which African American female empowerment has finally been able to become more vocal in a way that does not conform to traditional

The author goes to explain aspects intersectionality as this concept consists of many working forms of oppression as Collins uses intersectionality to assess the views and approaches to sexuality within the United States. The significance of intersectionality regarding this specific assessment of Black women’s sexuality reveals the reality of sexuality that is composed of “heterosexism, class, race, nation, and gender as systems of oppression converge” as these forms of oppression aren’t isolated from one another, but correlates in a way to form the matrix of domination. As intersectionality and the matrix of domination function within American society, “[for] Black women, ceding control over self-definitions of Black women’s sexualities upholds multiple oppressions. This is because all systems of oppression rely on harnessing the power of the erotic” as a way of establishing domination (Collins, 128.) Through further analysis in Formation, the matrix of domination directly confronts the dominant group that is the white population by challenging beauty standards, representation, stereotypes of African Americans, and gender roles throughout the entirety of the song. Additionally, the song addresses the different forms of oppression as the result from domains of

Lastly, both of these composed works will continue to be assessed and compared to future works of African American women as it is critical to understand the development of overcoming systems of oppression in the matrix of domination. In order to address the need for social change, Patricia Collins states that confronting these issues of oppression must have direction and vision. This song has the potential to ignite collective solidarity because of these shared experiences of oppression in which this severely marginalized group of people has has to overcome with their own form of empowerment that is still continuing to grow as the direct vision of the song has the potential to spur on the need for social