Shanita Hubbard

Shanita Hubbard’s writing has helped foster complex discourse around intracommunity sexual violence, abuse within the hip hop community, and the complicated relationship between Black women and hip hop. Accordingly, she was featured in the HBOMAX Documentary “On the Record” as an expert to provide commentary on the intersection of sexism and racism in America.

Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Pitchfork, ESSENCE, and a host of other publications. Hubbard is represented by LoTurco literary agency and is also the author of the bestselling book "Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well-Being of Black Women."

In the book, Hubbard, now an adjunct sociology professor, therapist and clinical consultant for therapists, interrogates the notion of the “ride or die chick” — a Black woman who holds down her family and community, often at her own expense. Hubbard argues that this way of life has left Black women exhausted, overworked, overlooked, and feeling depleted. She suggests that Black women are susceptible to this mentality because it’s normalized in our culture.

Combining her own personal experience with those of other Black women around her, and research on the physical, financial and emotional health of Black women, "Ride or Die" fervently dismantles cultural norms that require Black women to take care of everyone but themselves.

Hubbard created an initiative called #RideBeyond, in which her book is now being taught in a prison in MD.