Using Barbara J. Love's four elements of developing a liberatory consciousness, this essay establishes ratchetness as liberatory for Black girls and femmes through exploring the writer's efforts to subvert Black respectability politics in organizing with Black students on a predominately white campus and in building digital communities for queer women of color. Ratchetness honors personal experiences and identities as knowledge. This essay explores how ratchetness enables Black girls and femmes to maneuver through oppression without collapsing into dejectedness by allowing for creativity in the ways we express ourselves, use social media, promote body positivity, and dismantle the gender binary.
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2017
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