The Politics of Care

Utilizing the insights of radical Black feminist pragmatism, the political philosophy of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and building on the notion of democratic care proposed by Joan Tronto, Woodly defines and illuminates what she calls a politics of care.

The notion of care she illuminates is more than an ethics because it holds that the activity of governance in a society that hopes to be just must be oriented toward the responsibility to exercise and provide care for those most impacted by oppression and domination.

The politics of care practiced in the Black Lives Matter movement draws on lessons of healing justice (a conceptualization pioneered in the disability justice movement) and is characterized by an acknowledgement that trauma can be social, that is, individually born but structurally caused; a commitment to a kind healing that requires political action; an understanding of interdependence; the notion of unapologetic Blackness; a defense of Black joy; an insistence on accountability, and an abolitionist perspective favoring restorative justice practices that deal with harm by focusing on accountability and reparation rather than punishment.