Formerly enslaved Sudanese reclaimed a slur as a badge of courage

Evidence

These women claim descent from Bakhïta and, in so doing, redefine an insult and make it a badge of courage. They remake their identity with the same kind of ingenuity—experienced under difficulties perhaps as powerful—shown by their ancestors, the Blessed Bakhïta and Zanüba. It is both striking and sad that Egyptian nationalists like Yaqüb Sanüa, Ibrahïm Fawzï Pasha, and even Huda Sha`rawï recognized these women and others like them as part of the Egyptian family but never seemed to have really known them. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 1069

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reclamation logic in ‘abid-as-insult with modern reappropriations of derogatory terms across cultures.
• QUESTION: Why did Egyptian nationalists rhetorically include these women in the national family yet fail to know them — what institutional or perceptual gap?