Taking Over, Living-In

This article places Toni Cade Bambara at the center of a history of Black feminist culture and its radical politics of repair through a close reading of Bambara’s and Louis Massiah’s film treatment Come as You Are. In its depiction of a group of poor, unhoused Philadelphians taking over a luxury apartment building for a live-in, Come as You Are posits taking over and living-in as practices of refusal of the state care offered through social workers, the housing authority, welfare agencies, and the police. Bambara’s cinematic work points to Black feminist representations of state violence and contra-state forms of repair that complicate how feminist theory encounters the problem of reparative appeal.