One of the #BlackFeministSanta cards that Mwende Katwiwa made, featuring Deon Haywood, December 17, 2015. *Photos and memes by Mwende Katwiwa*

December 2015

Women With A Vision’s creation of Black Feminist Santa proves there are Black feminist possibilities everywhere, including and especially during what is often celebrated as a capitalist bacchanal—Christmas. After discussing the different ways the WWAV team grew up celebrating Christmas as little Black girls, the team got the idea to flip the idea of Santa Claus on its head. We created Black Feminist Santa, and we imagined how she would stand unapologetically in solidarity with sex workers and people in prison and poor people, seeing all of our fire dreams and supporting us in making them a reality.

By creating Black Feminist Santa, portrayed by WWAV’s Executive Director Deon Haywood, the WWAV team refused to let Christmas be wholly engulfed in capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and all the things we fight every day. Instead we dreamt of a Santa (and world) otherwise who would “spread joy, love, and revolution.”

“After all that work, I wasn’t about to let some rosy-cheeked white man take credit for providing for my children. I was young and poor and didn’t want my kids to be left out, so I worked hard to make sure they weren’t. We kept the holiday spirit, but we didn’t lie about where it came from. ”

— Deon Haywood, Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South, page 232

EXPLORE MORE HISTORY

Sex Work Decrim Fight

After more than 30 years of abolition feminist work alongside sex workers to reduce the harms of criminalization, Women With A Vision and our Sex Workers Advisory Committee (SWAC) mounted the first sex work decriminalization campaign in the Deep South.

Black Feminist Santa

Women With A Vision’s creation of Black Feminist Santa proves there are Black feminist possibilities everywhere, including and especially during what is often celebrated as a capitalist bacchanal—Christmas.

Porch Rap Session on Resilience, Post-Katrina, Post-Fire

It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about how we have “overcome,” but no one was ready to talk about the systems of oppression that made such “resilience” necessary. And so we decided to do what WWAV does: we came together to talk it out.