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COMMENTARY: Why ‘The Woman King’ Is Revolutionary

CHICAGO DEFENDER — Women characters becoming sword slashing or shotgun-toting badasses (i.e., Kill Bill and Foxy Brown) or rebels against their prescribed roles (i.e. Thelma & Louise) have often still registered as objects of the traditional gaze, rendered more exotic or erotic because they take on expected tropes of masculine toughness or step out of their domestic roles and temporarily seize the day. Women wielding weapons as well as or better than men can too easily be deemed as radical representations of women with little attention to context or the problematic association of violent toughness with heroic maleness on screen.
The post COMMENTARY: Why ‘The Woman King’ Is Revolutionary first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

3 years ago

September 19, 2022

Chicago Defender Staff

By: Dr. Stephane Dunn and Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftal | Chicago Defender

Back in a 1974 review of the Bond-like Cleopatra Jones movie starring Tamara Dobson, Feminist and former Ms. Magazine editor Margaret Sloan spoke volumes about Black female spectatorial desire. Damn, that felt good she wrote. After viewing The Woman King, we know exactly what she meant.

Cleopatra, a beautiful, kick-ass Black woman empowered by the U.S. government but grounded in her commitment to the Black community, was a Black Power era fantasy character. Over 40 years later, Marvel’s Afrofuturist Black Panther teased us with the cinematic possibilities of Wakanda’s supporting characters, a squad of royal Black women soldiers. The Woman King brings such women to the center and importantly marks both the evolution and realization of this on-screen representation of Black women and the cinematic evolution of its director, Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood with screenwriter Dana Stevens, The Woman King is inspired by the real-life Dahomey female warriors, the Agojie, who were formed in the 1700s and became legendary fighters. Viola Davis, who plays the fictional character General Nanisca – arguably a composite nod to various African warriors like Nzinga and Yaa Asantewaa, and an emerging young Agojie, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), lead an extraordinary cast including, Lashana Lynch as the enthralling Izogie and John Boyega as young King Ghezo.

The Woman King is not a biography or intended to be a neat history lesson on African women warriors and as such takes full creative license to reimagine the Agojie, threading together the historical realities of slavery, racial, gender, and class violence to fashion a world in which women have not only a female-centered, controlled safe space to live but literal physical and socio-political choice, voice, and visibility within the patriarchal structure of their immediate community and beyond.

Women characters becoming sword slashing or shotgun-toting badasses (i.e., Kill Bill and Foxy Brown) or rebels against their prescribed roles (i.e. Thelma & Louise) have often still registered as objects of the traditional gaze, rendered more exotic or erotic because they take on expected tropes of masculine toughness or step out of their domestic roles and temporarily seize the day. Women wielding weapons as well as or better than men can too easily be deemed as radical representations of women with little attention to context or the problematic association of violent toughness with heroic maleness on screen.

The Woman King has a copious amount of violence and blood; brutal warring between different African nations and between the Africans and Europeans involved in turbulent at turns reciprocal slave trafficking is one of the unfortunate realistic historical threads exploited in the film’s unapologetic anti-Atlantic slave trade and African involvement sentiment.

However, the spectacle of physical violence is in service to the dominant and most important critical representation in the film – women whose reaffirming collective sisterhood is a formidable force against patriarchal oppression and to an extent racial and class oppression. The women the Agojie rescue or take captive after the battle are given the power to choose a rare life and identity for themselves whereas men do not generally dictate their daily movements or can willfully them to be subservient wives, daughters, or servants that they can rape and beat at will.

To become Agojie is to fight for their male king and Dahomey, but as they remind each other, they fight for themselves and each other in service to their own double-edged quest for freedom and power as women and Dahomey people. This is not pretty work, women soldiering in battle with and against men. This is why the rare movie depiction of Black women in the community within the Agojie compound registers so magnificently.

Here neither men’s gaze nor presence is allowed. Here women dance, train, and braid each other’s hair, tend tenderly to one another’s wounds, strategize, debate respectfully, learn to transcend ethnic differences, and grow their sense of individual and collective empowerment.

The French slavers call them “Amazons” but this dismissive historical tag holds no weight in The Woman King. The women in the film hold the controlling narrative point of view and declare themselves, “Agojie” and “sisters” and there is the possibility of a ‘Woman King’.

Gina Price-Bythewood’s Black romantic classic, Love and Basketball (2000) marked the debut of its promising director. Two Black leads (portrayed by Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps) come to bond over their passion for playing basketball and later fall in love. We loved Prince-Bythewood’s exploration of a Black woman’s uneasy navigation of her professional ambition and the social gender expectations as her traditional mother’s daughter and boyfriend’s girl. And yet, it settled uneasily. Her passion and ambition for basketball rises, falls and rises again with the twists and turns of her romantic relationship until she’s happily settled in domestic life and in the WNBA.

Later, in Price-Bythewood’s under-rated Beyond the Lights (2014), the exploration of women’s difficulties choosing and defining their paths and self-identity continues with a young pop singer (Gugu Mbatha-raw) struggling to navigate the expectations of her manager mother and pop stardom; a romance with a regular good guy (Nate Parker) helps her to ultimately step into the music and self-representation she truly desires.

In real life, the Agojie were devastated by Dahomey’s ongoing conflicts – wars with other African nations and participation in and against the slave trade with the Europeans – becoming an exhibition for the Western gaze and historical record.

But The Woman King, thank you very much, is a movie. Gina Prince-Bythewood directs her fullest, most satisfying representation of Black women’s quest for autonomy and actualization. The Woman King boldly unsettles the traditional spectacle of patriarchy and not because the women fight with such dazzling physical might and skill with their bodies or rope and machete in hand, but because the most radical thing is that the love, intimacy, and sisterhood between women, the collective power of this, sits boldly at the center of The Woman King. In American popular film, this is revolutionary.

Words by: Dr. Stephane Dunn and Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftal

Dr. Stephane Dunn, PhD, MA, MFA is a writer, filmmaker, professor, and cultural critic and author of Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (2008), Chicago ’66 (2020) Finish Line/Tirota Social Impact Screenplay winner) & the novel Snitchers (2022). She is chair of the Morehouse Cinema, Television & Emerging Media Studies (CTEMS) department. Her work has appeared in a number of publications including, The Atlantic, Vogue, Ms. magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, and TheRoot.com, among others

@DrStephaneDunn

stephanedunn_writes

Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftal is Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies and the Founder and Director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center, at Spelman College. Sheftall published the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature (Doubleday, 1979), with Roseann P. Bell and Bettye Parker Smith; Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought (New Press, 1995); Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality (Indiana University Press, 2001) and (with Johnnetta Betsch Cole Gender Talk: The Struggle for Equality in African American Communities,
@DrGuySheftall

The post Why ‘The Woman King’ Is Revolutionary appeared first on Chicago Defender.

The post COMMENTARY: Why ‘The Woman King’ Is Revolutionary first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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LIHEAP Funds Released After Weeks of Delay as States and the District Rush to Protect Households from the Cold

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The federal government has released $3.6 billion in home heating assistance after a delay that left states preparing for the start of winter without the program’s annual funding.

Published

2 weeks ago

December 1, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The federal government has released $3.6 billion in home heating assistance after a delay that left states preparing for the start of winter without the program’s annual funding. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, helps eligible households pay heating and cooling bills. The release follows a shutdown that stretched 43 days and pushed agencies across the country to warn families of possible disruptions.

State officials in Minnesota, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania had already issued alerts that the delay could slow the processing of applications or force families to wait until December for help. In Pennsylvania, more than 300,000 households depend on the program each year. Minnesota officials noted that older adults, young children, and people with disabilities face the highest risk as temperatures fall.

The delay also raised concerns among advocates who track household debt tied to rising utility costs. National Energy Assistance Directors Association Executive Director Mark Wolfe said the funds were “essential and long overdue” and added that high arrearages and increased energy prices have strained families seeking help.

Some states faced additional pressure when other services were affected by the shutdown. According to data reviewed by national energy advocates, roughly 68 percent of LIHEAP households also receive nutrition assistance, and the freeze in multiple programs increased the financial burden on low-income residents. Wolfe said families were placed in “an even more precarious situation than usual” as the shutdown stretched into November.

In Maryland, lawmakers urged the Trump administration to release funds after the state recorded its first cold-related death of the season. The Maryland Department of Health reported that a man in his 30s was found outdoors in Frederick County when temperatures dropped. Last winter, the state documented 75 cold-related deaths, the highest number in five years. Rep Kweisi Mfume joined more than 100 House members calling for immediate federal action and said LIHEAP “is not a luxury” for the 100,000 Maryland households that rely on it. He added that seniors and veterans would be placed at risk if the program remained stalled.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore used $10.1 million in state funds to keep benefits moving, but noted that states cannot routinely replace federal dollars. His administration said families that rely on medical equipment requiring electricity are particularly vulnerable.

The District of Columbia has already mapped out its FY26 LIHEAP structure in documents filed with the federal government. The District’s plan shows that heating assistance, cooling assistance, weatherization, and year-round crisis assistance operate from October 1 through September 30. The District allocates 50 percent of its LIHEAP funds to heating assistance, 10 percent to cooling, 13 percent to year-round crisis assistance, 15 percent to weatherization, and 10 percent to administrative costs. Two percent is used for services that help residents reduce energy needs, including education on reading utility bills and identifying energy waste.

The District’s plan lists a minimum LIHEAP benefit of $200 and a maximum of $1,800 for both heating and cooling assistance. Crisis benefits are provided separately and may reach up to $500 when needed to resolve an emergency. The plan states that a household is considered in crisis if it has been disconnected from energy service, if heating oil is at 5 percent or less of capacity, or if the household has at least $200 owed after the regular benefit is applied.

The District’s filing notes that LIHEAP staff conduct outreach through community meetings, senior housing sites, Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, social media, posters, and mass mailings. The plan confirms that LIHEAP applicants can apply in person, by mail, by email, or through a mobile-friendly online application and that physically disabled residents may request in-home visits.

As agencies nationwide begin distributing the newly released funds, states continue working through large volumes of applications. Wolfe said LIHEAP administrators “have been notified that the award letters have gone out and the states can begin to draw down the funds.”

Stacy M. Brown

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Seven Steps to Help Your Child Build Meaningful Connections

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Swinging side by side with a friend on the playground. Sharing chalk over bright, colorful sidewalk drawings. Hiding behind a tree during a spirited game of hide-and-seek. These simple moments between children may seem small, but they matter more than we think

Published

2 weeks ago

December 1, 2025

Oakland Post

By Niyoka McCoy, Ed.D., Chief Learning Officer, Stride/K12

Swinging side by side with a friend on the playground. Sharing chalk over bright, colorful sidewalk drawings. Hiding behind a tree during a spirited game of hide-and-seek. These simple moments between children may seem small, but they matter more than we think: They lay the foundation for some of life’s most important skills.

Through everyday play, young children begin learning essential social and emotional skills like sharing, resolving conflicts, showing empathy, and managing their emotions. These social skills help shape emotional growth and set kids up for long-term success. Socialization in early childhood isn’t just a “nice-to-have”—it’s essential for development.

Yet today, many young children who haven’t yet started school aren’t getting enough consistent, meaningful interaction with peers. Research shows that there’s a decline in active free play and peer socialization when compared to previous generations.

There are many reasons for this. Children who are home with a parent during the day may spend most of their time with adults, limiting opportunities for peer play. Those in daycare or preschool may have restricted free play, and large classrooms can reduce supervision and social coaching. Some children live in rural areas, are homebound due to illness, have full schedules, or rely on screens to fill their playtime. And for some families, finding other families with young children to connect with isn’t easy.

While these challenges can feel significant, opportunities for connection still exist in every community. Families can take simple steps to help children build friendships, create a sense of belonging, and strengthen social skills. Here are some ideas to get started:

Storytime sessions at libraries or local bookstores
Community offerings such as parent-child workshops, art, music, gymnastics, swimming, or sports programs
Weekly events at children’s museums, which may include art projects, music workshops, or science experiments
Outdoor exploration, where kids can play with peers
Local parenting groups that organize playdates and group activities
Volunteer opportunities where children can participate, such as pet adoption events or packing meals at a food bank
Classes for kids at local businesses, including hardware, grocery, or craft stores

Some of these community activities are free or low-cost and give kids the chance to build friendships and practice social skills. Parents can also model positive social behavior by interacting with other parents and encouraging their children to play with their peers.

These may seem like small moments of connection, but they can have a powerful impact. Every time your child shares a toy, plays make-believe with peers, or races a friend down the slide, they’re not just playing—they’re learning the skills that build confidence, empathy, and lasting friendships. And it’s good for you, too. Creating intentional opportunities for play also helps you strengthen your own network of parents who can support one another as your children grow together.

Oakland Post

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Seven Steps to Help Your Child Build Meaningful Connections

Published

2 weeks ago

December 1, 2025

Oakland Post

By Niyoka McCoy, Ed.D., Chief Learning Officer, Stride/K12

Storytime sessions at libraries or local bookstores
Community offerings such as parent-child workshops, art, music, gymnastics, swimming, or sports programs
Weekly events at children’s museums, which may include art projects, music workshops, or science experiments
Outdoor exploration, where kids can play with peers
Local parenting groups that organize playdates and group activities
Volunteer opportunities where children can participate, such as pet adoption events or packing meals at a food bank
Classes for kids at local businesses, including hardware, grocery, or craft stores