Imani Perry

thumb|Imani Perry Imani Perry (born September 5, 1972) is an American interdisciplinary scholar of race, law, literature, and African American culture. She is the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, a Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and a columnist for The Atlantic. Quotes The thread of connection between the emotion, the intellect, and the imagination compels me. In that triangle is something that is fundamentally human. Imani Perry, n.d I was hooked. That book pulled me away from math and into American studies. But storytelling serves a very serious social function. We learn about the human condition, about decency, about love, about cruelty, about all manner of matters that are important philosophically, physically, and in every way in between, through storytelling. My work is based in a belief that the kinds of stories we learn and share are important for the world we co-create every day. And that belief requires a rigorous contemplation of what we have at our disposal, what is missing, and what we must imagine or re-imagine over and over again. The histories and stories of the oppressed are the closest we get to understanding the core of the human condition. And I don’t just mean the hate-filled people, although there are far too many of them, but all of us who accommodate so much suffering every day. I look to the past, I look to the imagination, I look to the interior, trying to figure out how we get from here to a future of ethical and kind human relations. The South has always had to carry this nation’s water. The United States became a global economic power because of its vast source of unfree labor in the South: Black people. Economic development depended not only upon their physical labor, and skill, but their reproductive labor. Generations of Southern Black babies were born to fill the nation’s coffers. It’s horrifying. But it is dishonest to put the burden of all that on the South. To act as though it is some vulgar racist backwater that the rest of the country is above is deceptive. “Emily Jones” was her pseudonym for her lesbian-themed work. The short stories, novellas, and mini-essays ought to be published (or republished as the case may be). She was a fierce intellectual as well as an artist: there is a body of exceptional essays by her about race, gender, sexuality, imperialism, and capitalism that I want the public to have access to. Finally, she wrote short plays that engage with the work of Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht that I love. But really, there are so many gems in her archive. If I had my druthers, we’d have a whole shelf of Hansberry titles. Dredging Up the Ever-Living Past, July 17 2021 So it feels like a place that is one of the sites of my own beginning. When they called my name, I was stunned. That moment changed my life. I think of them as kindred spirits. The 1619 Project is an intervention into telling the history in a more rigorous and truthful way, than the official story that marginalizes and erases black life from that story and also eliminates the harm [that resulted]. For me, it’s a responsibility but not a burden. It brings us to an understanding of how do you live a life of meaning and purpose? How do you bear witness to the truth as you see it. Listening deeply. To me, writing is an invitation to listen. And it creates a ‘sympathetic vibration,’ as in music when you are playing and someone facing you is playing and makes the strings on the other instrument tremble. Listening has that same possibility. You have to be open to hearing that. We often don’t listen, particularly to people who are deemed not important in our society. In the [current] battles over what we are going to teach, the reality is the story itself is the conflict. Who matters and who doesn’t? These are issues that have been struggled over for hundreds of years. That’s what the duality teaches us. Institutions and professional organizations have held onto papers that other people didn’t think were important and it turns out they can be instrumental to historians and researchers. The tradition of black folks holding onto things because they knew they were important means a lot to history and scholarship. I hope that it opens more conversations and contemplations. here are so many books about traveling through the South. Almost none are by women, and fewer are by Black women because of the real worry about safety. Zora showed immense courage in moving through the South and also the Caribbean and seeing the connections between the two. She figured out how to talk to people. She went as an anthropologist. She really transformed anthropology, how you talk to people in a way that is effective. The way she placed value on recording folk songs is as important as her intellectual work. My first book was on hip hop and I also feel able to move between being a scholar and being a creative writer. Keep it small. One of the best writing lessons is to remember that stories are intimate. Keep [the focus] small and specific because you can be overwhelmed if you think about everything. Be attentive– a kind of love. Locate your attention in a loving gaze. Scholar-Author Imani Perry on Listening Deeply, Turning 50, Writing About Historical Atrocities and Being a Mother, n.d The best writing is a conversation that you as a reader want to return to. There are some books I will be learning from, and some I’ll be arguing with, my whole life. Writing is absolutely the work of freedom. Not just freedom dreaming but being free. Writing as the Work of Freedom, February 4 2026 It is my people and traditions that moved the world with song and inspired the world with freedom dreams. [In the South], there’s a protective sensibility in terms of navigating the world and its racism. You learn and are socialized to have skepticism in order to be prepared. I don’t come from a Great Migration family. The majority of my family still lives in the South. In general, most people didn’t leave. After I left the South I missed that community. One thing we don't talk about enough is that people have to be transient in urban environments whether due to gentrification, economic instability, etc. Elders aren’t always in their homes as they age which disrupts the relationship sustaining and multigenerational ties that create deep trust and respect are lost. Given the layered forms of violence present, Black women and girls in the South forged a counter narrative and offered tools and institutions that could provide something different than what white supremacy would. The South and my Southern family offered me armor that I walk through the world with. This isn’t to downplay the emotional toll it takes but I had been so socialized into understanding that racism was a moral failing on their part. I associate my refusal to internalize white supremacy so much with my Southern roots. If you look at a Rosa Parks who organized against sexual violence long before the bus boycott or Fannie Lou Hamer who rallied against forced hysterectomies… their stories and work show us that when we talk about patriarchy and gender, we’re not just talking about attitudes but really exploitation where you are more vulnerable to intrusion and theft. When you start with the traditions and experiences of Black women in the South, you are forced to understand on a much deeper level what patriarchy is and how people are sorted based on how much protection they will receive. It’s an ethical commitment not only to addressing personal instances of sexism but also systemic ones. What Southern Black Women Can Teach Us (And The Country) About Ourselves, April 12 2022 I hope this new collection leads to a revived Shange moment, She published so much and in so many forms. This is new, but it also fits inside a magnificent body of work. Imani Perry on why Ntozake Shange’s work demands to be noticed September 10 2023 External links Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Authors from the United States Category:National Book Award winners Category:Women academics from the United States Category:20th-century African-American women Category:Harvard University faculty Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Yale University alumni