Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

"...Cooper delivers a frank, conversational-style examination of the importance of black female friendships, respectability politics, and harmful stereotypes, among other topics. She blends candor and humor as she roots out toxic behaviors and beliefs we use in America to tear ourselves and each other down, while also offering paths forward. Listeners learn how rage, aimed with fine-tuned focus and purpose, can help build up black women's lives and society overall." - AudioFile Magazine

With searing honesty, intimacy and humor too, America's leading young black feminist celebrates the power of rage in this piercing new audiobook.


So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Far too often, Black women's anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women's eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It's what makes Beyoncé's girl power anthems resonate so hard. It's what makes Michelle Obama an icon.

Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don't have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother's eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today. In Brittney Cooper's world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. This audiobook argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.

More Praise for Eloquent Rage:

“I was waiting for an author who wouldn't forget, ignore, or erase us black girls as they told their own story...I was waiting and she has come-in Brittney Cooper.” - Melissa Harris Perry

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today. Her critique is sharp, her love of Black people and Black culture is deep, and she will make you laugh out loud.” - Michael Eric Dyson

"1126613211"
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

"...Cooper delivers a frank, conversational-style examination of the importance of black female friendships, respectability politics, and harmful stereotypes, among other topics. She blends candor and humor as she roots out toxic behaviors and beliefs we use in America to tear ourselves and each other down, while also offering paths forward. Listeners learn how rage, aimed with fine-tuned focus and purpose, can help build up black women's lives and society overall." - AudioFile Magazine

With searing honesty, intimacy and humor too, America's leading young black feminist celebrates the power of rage in this piercing new audiobook.


So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Far too often, Black women's anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women's eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It's what makes Beyoncé's girl power anthems resonate so hard. It's what makes Michelle Obama an icon.

Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don't have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother's eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today. In Brittney Cooper's world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. This audiobook argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.

More Praise for Eloquent Rage:

“I was waiting for an author who wouldn't forget, ignore, or erase us black girls as they told their own story...I was waiting and she has come-in Brittney Cooper.” - Melissa Harris Perry

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today. Her critique is sharp, her love of Black people and Black culture is deep, and she will make you laugh out loud.” - Michael Eric Dyson

19.99 In Stock
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

by Brittney Cooper

Narrated by Brittney Cooper

Unabridged — 6 hours, 57 minutes

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

by Brittney Cooper

Narrated by Brittney Cooper

Unabridged — 6 hours, 57 minutes

Audiobook (Digital)

$18.39
FREE With a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime
$0.00

Free with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime

$19.99 Save 8% Current price is $18.39, Original price is $19.99. You Save 8%.
START FREE TRIAL

Already Subscribed? 

Sign in to Your BN.com Account


Listen on the free Barnes & Noble NOOK app


Related collections and offers

FREE

with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription

Or Pay $18.39 $19.99

Overview

"...Cooper delivers a frank, conversational-style examination of the importance of black female friendships, respectability politics, and harmful stereotypes, among other topics. She blends candor and humor as she roots out toxic behaviors and beliefs we use in America to tear ourselves and each other down, while also offering paths forward. Listeners learn how rage, aimed with fine-tuned focus and purpose, can help build up black women's lives and society overall." - AudioFile Magazine

With searing honesty, intimacy and humor too, America's leading young black feminist celebrates the power of rage in this piercing new audiobook.


So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Far too often, Black women's anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women's eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It's what makes Beyoncé's girl power anthems resonate so hard. It's what makes Michelle Obama an icon.

Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don't have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother's eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today. In Brittney Cooper's world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. This audiobook argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.

More Praise for Eloquent Rage:

“I was waiting for an author who wouldn't forget, ignore, or erase us black girls as they told their own story...I was waiting and she has come-in Brittney Cooper.” - Melissa Harris Perry

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today. Her critique is sharp, her love of Black people and Black culture is deep, and she will make you laugh out loud.” - Michael Eric Dyson


Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

11/06/2017
Cooper, Cosmopolitan contributor and cofounder of the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, provides incisive commentary in this collection of essays about the issues facing black feminists in what she sees as an increasingly retrograde society. Many of the essays are deeply personal, with Cooper using her own experiences as springboards to larger concerns. In the essay “The Smartest Man I Never Knew,” Cooper uses the story of the attempted murder of Cooper’s mother (while she was pregnant with Cooper) by her mother’s jealous boyfriend as an example of American culture’s toxic masculinity. Elsewhere in the collection, the author explores her own identity as a black, Southern, Christian feminist and the ways in which personal politics can become incongruous, and she openly admits her own privilege. Cooper is at her best and most inflammatory in an essay titled “White Girl Tears,” in which she bulldozes white feminists for cultural appropriation and failing to “come get their people” during the 2016 presidential election. Cooper also cleverly uses Michelle Obama’s hair to craft an artful censure of respectability politics and discusses Beyoncé as a cultural symbol of black female solidarity. In these provocative essays, Cooper is both candid and vulnerable, and unwilling to suffer fools. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

One of Signature's "5 Books that Bring Intersectional Feminism to the Forefront"

"Eloquent Rage follows in the line of classics in the genre..." —The New York Times

"[A] proud, energetic reclamation of anger, via memoir and pop cultural analysis... forceful and smart and joyous all at once...It was an inspiration to me." —Rebecca Traister, The Cut

"Razor sharp and hilarious. There is so much about her analysis that I relate to and grapple with on a daily basis as a Latina feminist." —America Ferrera

"[Eloquent Rage] is distinct both for its telling as the author’s own journey and for its—yes—eloquent personal voice, which, between her erudition (she is a professor at Rutgers) and her command of vernacular, is funny, wrenching, pithy, and pointed." —Rebecca Solnit, The New Republic

"A dissertation on black women’s pain and possibility; an autobiography of a black woman’s complicated dance with feminism, overcoming otherness as a big black girl in a skinny-white-girl world, her mother’s triumph over violence, and her own journey from disappointment to black joy." —Joy Reid, Cosmopolitan

"A powerful examination of Black women’s anger, the cost for Black women who choose to be angry, and how all of this is rooted in misogynoir – or, racist and sexist oppression. Cooper gives us hope, reminding us that we can be powerful and we don’t have to settle for less." —Signature

"Cooper's Eloquent Rage is a fearless, phenomenal memoir of finding her voice as a black woman." —The Root

"A breakthrough... this force of nature is becoming one of our fiercest voices in the new generation of African-American thinkers." —Essence

"With straight-up vulnerability and humor sprinkled in, Cooper reminds readers that feminism, in essence, is about loving women...a for-us-by-us handbook tailor made to obliterate the idea of post-racialism in the Trump era." —Bust Magazine

"[Cooper's] ardent book reminds us that what you build is infinitely more important than what you tear down—and that rage makes great mortar." —Ms. Magazine

"Cooper says there's power in being mad as hell." —Cosmopolitan

“An ambitious, electrifying memoir. Recommended for readers seeking contemporary social commentary that’s unrelenting yet humorous.” —Library Journal (Starred Review)

“Sharp and always humane, Cooper's book suggests important ways in which feminism needs to evolve for the betterment not just of black women, but society as a whole. A timely and provocative book that shows ‘what you build is infinitely more important than what you tear down.’” —Kirkus Reviews

"Cooper is both candid and vulnerable, and unwilling to suffer fools." —Publisher's Weekly

"[Cooper's] words resonate beyond the limit of the page; her call carries forth indefinitely." —Mark Anthony Neal, NewBlackMan (in Exile)

"In 2015, [Cooper and I] were part of a panel at Harvard on race and the media (Panama Jackson and Kimberly Foster from For Harriet were also there). Within the first five minutes of the conversation, I wanted to get up and take a seat in the audience. That’s how long it took for me to realize that everything I planned to say and every point I’d try to make, Brittney could say better and more powerfully, and somehow more succinctly and more descriptively." —Damon Young, The Root

"Written with grace mixed with blunt honesty...readable, accessible, entertaining, brave, and important." —Corvus Strigiform, The Weightless State Between Here and There

"Cooper personifies what Sonia Sanchez called "homegirl and hand-grenade" — here, like the homegirl she is, Cooper gives us the uncensored truth about how America has become what it is today, and reminds us in no uncertain terms that Black people, and particularly Black women, have the brilliance, foresight, and vision to bring a different America to fruition, should we choose to use our powers for good rather than evil." —Alicia Garza, Special Projects Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance and Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter

"Brittney Cooper is a national treasure. Eloquent Rage is as exhilarating as it is vulnerable, a crucial book that tackles friendship and feminism, Hillary Clinton and Sandra Bland, violence and family, sex and faith and race and gender, all with vibrant grace and honesty. Cooper is a generous writer, affording even those she rages against good humored compassion, but never letting any of us fully off the hook. This book is just so good." —Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies

"Brittney Cooper is not just one of the leading black feminist public intellectuals of the day, she is the Black Feminist Prophet we urgently need. Her work is the most rigorous, honest, heartfelt, compassionate, and challenging of any cultural critic out there because she does not shy away from the areas of black life too long considered taboo. In taking the lives of black women and girls seriously, Eloquent Rage succeeds where too many have failed. For those still searching for ways to discuss black women's lives with nuance and love, Brittney Cooper's fiery brilliance is ready to light your path." —Mychal Denzel Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

“I was waiting for an Ida Wells, an Anna Julia Cooper, a bell hooks, a Patricia Hill Collins—an author who wouldn’t forget, ignore, or erase us black girls as they told their own story and that of the race and the nation. I was waiting and she has come—in Brittney Cooper.” —Melissa Harris Perry

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today. Her critique is sharp, her love of Black people and Black culture is deep, and she will make you laugh out loud even as she kicks the clay feet out from under your cherished idols.” —Michael Eric Dyson

School Library Journal

07/01/2018
In her debut, Cooper, cofounder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, reflects on the role that racism and sexism have played in her life—and the lives of black women in the United States. "To be black is to grow up in a world where white feelings can become dangerous weapons." Being a black woman, she adds, is to be both visible and invisible. As a child in rural Louisiana, Cooper was often the lone black girl in her class and within her circle of friends; she considers whether that experience led her to have an affinity for fictional white characters, from those in "The Baby-Sitters Club" to Gilmore Girls. Later, she recounts the outpouring of white guilt after the 2016 election, in addition to her complicated relationship with the black church. Growing up in the church, Cooper began to question her faith as a Southern Baptist and whether there was a place for her in evangelicalism. In sharing her evolution into a self-professed black feminist grateful for Beyoncé as a feminist icon, Cooper deftly examines friendships between black women. In her case, this often meant not being considered black enough. VERDICT An insightful read for teens questioning politics or faith and those looking to learn more about black feminism and social justice.—Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

APRIL 2018 - AudioFile

Author and narrator Brittney Cooper declares a “homegirl intervention” in her memoir on inclusive and intersectional feminism aimed primarily at adult women. Cooper’s Black feminism is grounded in her experiences navigating the world as a self-professed nerdy Black girl. As she delves into the choices, events, and ideas that shaped her life, Cooper delivers a frank, conversational-style examination of the importance of Black female friendships, respectability politics, and harmful stereotypes, among other topics. She blends candor and humor as she roots out toxic behaviors and beliefs we use in America to tear ourselves and each other down, while also offering paths forward. Listeners learn how rage, aimed with fine-tuned focus and purpose, can help build up Black women’s lives and society overall. J.R.T. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2017-11-26
A professor explores the ways "sexism, and racism, and classism work together to fuck shit up for everybody" and how feminism can begin undoing the damage."We [black women] are told we are irrational, crazy, out of touch, entitled, disruptive and not team players," writes Cooper (Women and Gender Studies, Africana Studies/Rutgers Univ.). But as her feminist foremother Audre Lorde once remarked, this anger was not only legitimate; it was also "a powerful source of energy serving progress and change." Here, Cooper brings together essays tracing her evolution as a feminist while giving voice to the political (out)rage seething within. The author begins by detailing the difficult journey that led her to "disidentify with [the] whiteness" of mainstream feminism and learn to embrace her "particular Black girl magic." Her quest for political authenticity meant fighting with white women over racism and black men over sexism. Participating in these separate battles did not blind her to the need for alliances with both groups, however; they only made her more aware of the need for creating solidarity across communities to topple patriarchy. Cooper's feminist journey also forced her to shed cultural "baggage"—such as the racism of a white society that questioned her movements on American streets and the sexism of black society that sought to control her sexuality through the church—that limited her passage through the world. Once uncovered and focused, however, the rage that inevitably comes from such injustices is of tremendous benefit to all. Cooper points to tennis star Serena Williams, former first lady Michelle Obama, and singer Beyoncé as contemporary black feminist role models. By learning how to channel their rage in their areas of endeavor, they have earned game-changing respect that has transcended race and gender. Sharp and always humane, Cooper's book suggests important ways in which feminism needs to evolve for the betterment not just of black women, but society as a whole.A timely and provocative book that shows "what you build is infinitely more important than what you tear down."

Product Details

BN ID: 2940171953638
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication date: 02/20/2018
Edition description: Unabridged
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews