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Black Feminist Epistemologies 2025

My Only Weapon Is My Pen: Black Women Speaking Truth to Power

Thomas, J. O., & Rankin, Y. A.
interactions, ACM

Abstract

This forum piece reflects on writing and scholarship as tools of resistance for Black women in computing. The authors consider what it means to speak truth to power within academic institutions that were not built with Black women in mind.

Grounded in Black feminist thought, the essay frames the pen — scholarship, narrative, testimony — as a means of survival, critique, and transformation.

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