Colonial narratives about Black women did not disappear with colonial rule; they continue to shape how Black women are perceived, treated, and represented today.
In this debut episode of Disrupting the Colonial Script: Centering Black Women’s Voices—the podcast series of our broader "Unfinished Freedom (external link)" project—we trace these very continuities to highlight the struggle for structural accountability.
Produced in partnership with Liberation Alliance Africa (external link), this opening conversation brings together co-hosts Oluwatobiloba Ayodele (external link) and Lavender Namdiero (external link) with guests Omolara Oriye (external link), a cultural worker, thinker, decolonial feminist organizer, lawyer, and co-dreamer of Liberation Alliance Africa, and Reem Abbas, a feminist writer, researcher, and organizer with the alliance.
Together, they unpack the colonial origins of enduring stereotypes about Black women, exposing how these historical logics continue to dictate healthcare, media, public policy, and everyday life. Drawing on decolonial feminist thought, lived experience, and indigenous knowledge, the conversation moves beyond exposing harm to center Black women's agency, political imagination, and collective resistance. Colonial Shadows invites listeners to question the stories we have inherited, challenge the systems that sustain them, and imagine futures where Black women define themselves on their own terms.