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Black Women Packing Heat

(Photo by f_matra via Flickr Creative Commons)

Produced with Emma Ruddock

The 1974 Blaxploitation film Foxy Brown portrays a strong black woman with a gun who isn’t afraid to use it. The "Cleopatra Jones" films and TV’s “Get Christie Love,” carried on the image, which then went the way of the full blowout afro. A 2011 survey estimates that some 15-20 million American women own guns…when you hear that number, do you think of Sarah Palin hunting? Of Lindsay McCrum’s best-selling book,Chicks with Guns? In other words, white women?  Joshunda Sanders is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas whowrote about her decision to get a license to carry a firearm for “Bitch" magazine…uncovering a long & complicated relationship between African American women. We found the article reprinted by the Utne Reader.

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