Feminista Jones

Michelle Taylor (known by the online pseudonym Feminista Jones) is an American social worker and writer.[1] She is a contributor to Black Twitter and a blogger about Black feminism. Jones describes in Salon, "a collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community... is proving adept at bringing about a wide range of sociopolitical changes."[2]

Career and activism

Taylor works at Witnesses to Hunger, a project of Drexel University's Center for Hunger-Free Communities[3]. In 2013, Taylor was selected as a United Nations Foundation Fellow for her social media influence. In 2014, she launched a global anti-street harassment campaign (#YouOKSis) and a National Moment of Silence protesting police brutality (#NMOS14), both of which received international media attention.[4][5] #NMOS14, also known as National Moment of Silence, was used to get people on Twitter to join in on vigils after the death of Michael Brown.[1] Taylor's goal is to get people to realize that black lives matter and her tweet, "Even if you don't experience something, it doesn't mean it didn't happen" is used to shed a light on all of the police violence that is ignored.[1] Taylor is a supporter of the Black Lives Matter organization and believes it is necessary for individuals to recognize the hardships that people of color are faced with.[1]

A recent survey found that 65 percent of women in the U.S have experienced street harassment--that is a startling figure-mainly because street harassment is rarely discussed as a policy issue.[4] Jones has been working to reduce that number by tweeting about her own experience intervening in an incident of street harassment in New York.[4][5] Another user, @BlackGirlDanger suggested turning the phrase she had used to check in with the woman--"You OK, sis"--into a hashtag campaign designed to raise awareness and encourage people to ask victims of harassment if they are okay or if they need help.[4][5] Hundreds of people began using the hashtag as a means to report street harassment.[4][5]

For this work, she was awarded the 2014 "Black Weblog Award" for Outstanding Online Activism.[6]

In 2014, she was honored as one of the Top 100 Black Social Influencers by The Root. Taylor was a featured speaker at the Philadelphia Woman's March that took place on January 21, 2017. Her main message while speaking at the Philadelphia Woman's March was to talk about the difference between allies and co-conspirators.[1] She voices, "I am not interested in White allies, what I really want are co-conspirators." The definition of ally-ship is to mutually benefit and support. Black people are not obligated to provide support to white people who are dominant. Jones continues, "they are not working together on a mutual goal. My goal is to live. White people don't have that same goal." [1]

Jones wants more participation in rallies and civil action and by all means does not want white people to be excluded.[1] What she needs is for people to come and work alongside her in the trenches and be there to say, "I support you, and not only do I support you but I am here with you rolling up my sleeves and asking, what do I need to do?"[1][2]

In 2015, Taylor co-founded and served as General Director of the Women’s Freedom Conference, the first all-digital conference completely organized by and featuring only Women of Color. For her work, she was named one of SheKnows/BlogHer’s 2015 "Voices of the Year". In 2015, "Feminista Jones" wrote several articles for the Washington Post, Salon, TIME.com, and TheEbony.com.[7][8][2] Taylor has been regularly featured on Huffingpost Live, has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show and the Exhale Show, and her work has been featured on C-SPAN (2014)[9] and MSNBC.. In 2018, she was included on Philadelphia Magazine in "The 100 Most Influential Philadelphians."

She is from New York City.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "The Disruptors". CNN. August 2015. Retrieved 2016-08-01. Hackman, Rose (26 June 2015). "'We Need Co-Conspirators, Not Allies': How White Americans Can Fight Racism". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "Stories written by Feminista Jones". Salon. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  3. ↑ "Welcome | Philadelphia Magazine". www.phillymag.com. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Berlatsky, Noah. "Black Women and Street Harassment: 'Even If You Don't Like It, You're Supposed to Appear That You Do". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2016-04-11.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "#YouOKSis? A Small Effort to Thwart #StreetHarassment (with images, tweets) · FeministaJones". Storify. Retrieved 2016-04-11.
  6. ↑ "2014 Black Weblog Award Winners". Black Weblog Awards via Wayback Machine. November 1, 2014. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  7. ↑ Jones, Feminista (2015-05-14). "Keep Harriet Tubman – and all women – off the $20 bill". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  8. ↑ "Feminista Jones | TIME". TIME.com. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  9. ↑ "Feminista Jones". C-SPAN. Retrieved February 2, 2018.
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