Header Image - The Worlds of Ntozake Shange
The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Makaria Yami

What’s In a Name?

by Makaria Yami 1 Comment

Throughout my life, my understand and my self-identification of feminism has constantly shifted. There was a time when I thought identifying as just a feminist was a bold move and I didn’t even think about adding words to that identity. The first time that I began to feel like the label “feminist” couldn’t capture my identity was when I started exploring all of my different identities and I started learned how they interacted with each other. I would hear and learn about other feminists and realize that I not only couldn’t relate to them, but I also didn’t even want to associate with them. These feminists only shared one thing with me, my identity as a woman.

However, my identity as a woman is not the only important identity I hold. My Blackness, my identity as an Ethiopian immigrant, and my experiences as a Black American are all important to me. For most of my life, I felt like I had to pick one identity, which was difficult to deal with. However, learning more about the possibility of feminism as an all-encompassing identity made me realize that I could hold all of my identities.

If I could label myself, and get away with having an inextricably long label, I would identify as a Black, Ethiopian, Immigrant, Oromo Feminist. The order of the words prior to “feminism” is not significant, but I couldn’t represent myself without these words. I want to keep the word Black because my identity as a Black person in America has played a critical role in my understanding of race and influenced the way I experience my gender. I included Ethiopian because my cultural background and customs have also shaped my understanding of gender. I included immigrant because my gender has determined the way that I, along with other women in my family, experience being an immigrant. For example, my mom came to America two years after my dad because he was getting a Ph.D. and establishing a life for our family. In fact, most immigrant families I know are structured in a way that the father moves to the west to get an education while the wife follows years after with the kids. Lastly, I included the word Oromo, which is the name of the ethnic group I belong to. This group has suffered abuse, torture, and marginalization by the Ethiopian government and Oromo women have been subjected to gendered violence.

All of these components of my life are important to me and I don’t believe anyone is more important than the others. They have all helped me to understand what it means to be a feminist by giving me a racial and global context. I chose to use these words because they are very specific to my identity and I feel more comfortable using words that are specific to my identity to describe myself. For example, I don’t identify as an African feminist, because I only feel comfortable identifying with the Ethiopian and Oromo experience, not the African experience which is too vast.

As for the what terms I am planning on using to classify the radical women for my archival project, I am planning on using the term third world feminist. I believe the writings of Shange indicate that she identifies with the views of third world feminists, as I wrote about in my blog post A Daughter’s Geography and Third World Feminism. As for the other radical women, I will look to see how they themselves identify.

This is a photo of an Oromo woman grieving at an Oromo Protest. The protest was against the Ethiopian government which oppressed Oromos and inflicted violence on those who protested the government’s actions.

Thoughts on Unseen: Unpublished Black History

by Makaria Yami 0 Comments

On Friday the 29th, I had the opportunity to attend Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the NYT Archives. The room was packed and the event organizers had to keep bringing in more chairs for the attendees of the event. It was exciting to see that so many members of the Barnard community were interested in learning more about Black history.

One thing that I found surprising was that photography was not always an important component of the New York Times. In fact, it wasn’t until recently that photography was seen as deserving of space in the paper. The images that were commonly placed in the NYT were ads. This is frustrating because photojournalism is a moving and inspiring way to tell stories and it’s sad that the opportunity to utilize photos as a form of storytelling was often ignored by the NYT.

One of the writers of Unseen: Unpublished Black History said the book was about “who wasn’t there” when stories were being told. She said that the book explored what the New York Times chose to cover or not cover and why.

I wonder why the NYT didn’t believe that these photos were worth publishing when they were taken. If they didn’t think that these photos were worth publishing, why were they taken in the first place?

One of my favorite stories discussed at the event was the story of Lena Horne. Lena Horne was a Black singer, actress, and dancer. Horne had trouble finding an apartment in the city because she was Black. Her good friend Harry Belafonte, who was a Black musician, was also having a difficult time getting an apartment in the city. As a result, Belafonte decided to send his white publicist to rent an apartment for him. When the owners found out Belafonte was Black, they refused to give him the apartment. Furious, Belafonte decided to secretly buy the entire building and give Lena Horne a penthouse in the building. This story is so beautiful and inspiring because I don’t always hear stories about Black people winning.

This story is one of the many that was hidden in the NYT archives and is now being brought back to life by this book. It’s sad that these inspiring stories were hidden for so long. More importantly, it’s frustrating to think about how Americans consuming the news were missing important elements of the stories they were reading about, simply because these images were never printed.

A photo of Lena Horne in her apartment.

Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography and Third World Feminism

by Makaria Yami 0 Comments

When I was reading Reclaiming Third World Feminism: or Why Transnational Feminism Needs Third World Feminism by Ranjoo Seodu Herr, I could not help but think of Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography by Ntozake Shange. Herr’s assertion that Transnational Feminism has gained more popularity than Third World Feminism is true, as I had not heard of Third World Feminism until I joined this class.

 

Herr says that there are similarities between Transnational Feminism and Third World feminism, but what separates them is that Transnational feminists “consider nation-states and nationalism as detrimental to feminist causes, whereas Third World feminists are relatively neutral to, and at times even approving of, nation-states and nationalism” (Herr 2). Third World Feminism rejects white global feminism, which is the idea that women across the globe suffer from universal patriarchy.

 

Shange’s work in Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography reminds me of third world feminism, as it rejects the idea of a narrow understanding of gender oppression and it acknowledges nation-states. Shange writes:

 

“but i have a daughter/ la habana

i have a son/ guyana

our twins

santiago & brixton/ cannot speak

the same language

yet we fight the same old men”

 

In this quote, Shange mentions Cuba (la habana), Guyana, Chile (Santiago), and England (Brixton). In the entirety of the poem, she not only talk about South America and Europe but also Africa. Shange’s poem has a global context and she writes about nation-states, which is different from how Transnational feminists would write because they would have a global context without mentioning nation states. When Shange writes “yet we fight the same fight,” she is referring to imperialism, an important tool used to analyze the oppression of third world women.

 

One reason that Third World feminists don’t reject nation-states and nationalism in their analysis of their oppression is that nationalism has been an important tool to reject imperialism. Shange seems to work in this context because her poem is about imperialism (“the same old men”) and nation states/nationalism. Another reason Third World feminists don’t outright reject nation-states and nationalism is that relinquishing “the national political arena to patriarchal feminists [who identify as nationalists] . . . would be tantamount to authorizing them to continue with impunity and the subjugation of women’” (Herr 8). Male Third World nationalists have ascribed masculinity to nationalism, and by not associating with nationalism, Third World feminists don’t get to voice their objection to the association of masculinity with nationalism. Shange’s poem rejects the idea of nationalism as a masculine conception, as she says “but i have a daughter” and “i have a son.”

Shange’s poem pairs well with Herr’s essay because the definitions that Herr provides for Third World feminism are reflected in Shange’s poem.

In her essay, Herr cites Third World feminist Chandra Mohanty. I included a picture of a book Mohanty wrote because I thought the cover was beautiful. The dove and sun that the woman in the middle is holding stood out to me. It reminded me of the last line in Shange’s poem, “we are feeding our children the sun.”

Archives & Remembering Shange

by Makaria Yami 1 Comment

I wanted to take some time to honor Ntozake Shange and her memory by discussing my experience with the Shange archives. Prior to exploring her archives, I didn’t have a concrete understanding of what the purpose and history of archiving was. Not only did the Shange archive give me that understanding, but it also brought me closer to Shange and her work.

 

My favorite thing in the archive is her journals. As someone who frequently journals, I understand how personal and vulnerable it is to share what you journaled about with another person. That’s why I was surprised to learn that Barnard had some of her journals.

 

I am thankful to Shange for allowing us into her personal thoughts and feelings. In her journal, on March 1, 2000, Shange writes, “Even though I took my medicine and paid my bills, I still feel really shaky & anxious. Talked to mama . . .”

 

This page stood out to me because I sometimes deal with the same emotions that Shange dealt with. It’s even more frustrating when I do everything that I am supposed to, everything from cleaning my room to fulfilling my extracurricular and academic activities, and still feel anxious. It’s hard to talk about these feelings, but because Shange so openly shared her feelings with us, it makes me feel more comfortable opening up.

 

In the same entry, Shange writes, “I think I did the syllabus wrong, not putting enough material for each session. But I’ll see tomorrow. I didn’t work on the novel today, either.”

 

It’s clear to see that she is dealing with doubt, anxiety, and an inability to work. When I looked at when her work was published, nothing was published the year she wrote this journal entry. The work she published after this journal entry was in 2003, three years after the entry. The works are titled Ellington Was Not a Street and Daddy Says.

 

Another thing that I found interesting was that she changed from a black pen to a blue pen in the middle of her entry. I thought this was interesting because she changed the pen in the middle of a sentence and it doesn’t look like the black pen was running out of ink when she switched it. The more entries I read, the more I want to understand where she wrote what she wrote, what time of day she wrote it, and every other detail.

 

The more I explore Shange’s archives, the more I want to read her work. I feel closer to Shange and her work more than any other author. Even though I am deeply saddened that she passed away, it makes me happy to know her memory will live on through the archives.   

Photos of Shange’s journal entries.

On the Margins

by Makaria Yami 2 Comments

 

The readings this week helped me to learn about the Black Arts Movement and further understand the relationship between Black women and Black men. Prior to this class, I only had a vague understanding of what the Black Arts Movement was. The texts this week not only allowed me to get a better understanding of it, but they helped me learn about some of the criticisms associated with the movement. Going further, I thought about how those criticisms are a continuous theme throughout Shange’s work.

 

In Harryette Mullen’s article, Artistic Expression Was Flowing Everywhere: Alison Mills and Ntozake Shange, Black Bohemian feminists in the 1970s, Mullen talks about how Shange’s book, Sassafrass Cypress & Indigo, is unknown in comparison to her other works. Mullen says that Bohemian Black women “have existed on the margins of mainstream and black cultures” (Mullen 207). She also asserts that “militant revolutionaries of the 1960s tended to conflate their affirmation of blackness with a celebration of black masculinity” (Mullen 213).

 

The criticisms laid out by Mullen portray how Black women, specifically Bohemian Black women, are often overshadowed and their voices are forgotten. This made me think about the relationship between Sassafrass and Mitch in Sassafrass Cypress & Indigo. Shange writes, “Sassafrass caught herself focusing in on Mich again instead of herself, because she did want to be perfected for him, like he was perfected and creating all the time . . . She needed Mitch because Mitch was all she loved in herself” (Shange 80).

 

Just as the Black Arts Movement tended to leave Bohemian Black women on the margins, some Bohemian Black women, like Sassafrass, felt like they had to put themselves in the margins while centering the Black men in their lives. This idea is a common theme among women of color and is also discussed in Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf. The women in Shange’s poem talk about their complicated relationship with men, and how their voice and identity are on the margins, saying that they have “unseen performances” and “lyrics/ no voices.”

All of the work that we have read has shown me how Black women are always at the margins, whether it’s within the relationships Black women have with men or within the Black Arts Movement. What I truly love about Shange’s work is that she does the exact opposite; she crafts beautiful stories with Black women at the center point.

A photo of Black women during the BAM.

Multiracial Feminism and For Colored Girls

by Makaria Yami 1 Comment

Reading Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism was insightful and reminded me of Shange’s work. The most interesting part of the paper was when Becky Thompson, the author, talked about the periodization of second-wave feminism.

 

Thompson says, “Ironically, the very period that white feminist historians typically treat as the period of decline within the movement is the period of mass mobilization among anti-racist women- both straight and lesbian” (Thompson 334). White feminists believed that mass mobilization for feminists issues was at a low in 1982, however, looking at the history of women of color activists and scholars, it’s clear that 1982 was the hight of multiracial feminism.

 

This was surprising to learn because it made me realize that my understanding of history has been formed through a white lens. It also made me angry because I learned that white women have erased the voices of women of color. It made me think of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf when Shange wrote:

 

“another song  with no singers

lyrics/ no voices

& interrupted solos

unseen performances”

 

The voices of women of color are always pushed aside to allow white women to be at the center and have control over any narrative.

 

In Thompson’s article, she talks about how women of color feminist organizations worked together and learned from each other. She says, “As the straight Black women interacted with the Black lesbians, the first generation Chinese women talked with the Native American activists, and the Latina women talked with the Black and white women about the walls that go up when people cannot speak Spanish…” (Thompson 343).

 

Thompson’s description of how women of color worked together to understand each other’s issues really made me think of how in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf, Shange wrote about women of color coming together to share their stories, understand each other, and form a community. Shange wrote:

 

“LADY IN BLUE:

i never did like to grind.

LADY IN YELLOW:

what other kind of dances are there?

LADY IN BLUE:

mambo, bomba, merengue . . .

LADY IN YELLOW:

Do you speak spanish?

LADY IN BLUE:

olà”

Although this was not the most prominent part of the Shange’s book, I loved it! The women were directly addressing each other, giving their opinions, and learning. It made me think of Thompson’s quote regarding women of color feminists coming together. It was one of my favorite themes in Shange’s book and it makes me happy to see that this relationship is reflected in the history of feminism.

A poster from the National Black Feminist Organization, created in 1973 to fight racism and sexism. This group was discussed in Thompson’s paper.

With No Immediate Cause- The Case Of Brett Kavanaugh

by Makaria Yami 0 Comments

I was drawn to Ntozake’s poem With No Immediate Cause when reading her book Nappy Edges because it is relevant to the political climate of our country and it felt true to my experience as a woman. In this poem, Shange narrates her everyday experiences as she interacts with men, noting how she is filled with anguish and fear everytime she interacts with a man. Elaborating on this idea, Shange writes:

 

“i rode the subway today

& bought a paper from a

man who might

have held his old lady onto

a hot pressing iron/ i dont know” (Nappy Edges).

 

The first thing I thought of when I read this poem was the sexual assault cases against supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. What stood out to me during the trail and the television interview was his attempt to paint himself as a good man incapable of assaulting a woman. He talked about his virginity throughout high school, his Yale degree, and his Christian faith. He attempted to distance himself from what he believed to be the image of a sexual assaulter. What I believe Shange’s poem does is highlight how all men, regardless of all the things mentioned by Kavanaugh, have the potential to be an abuser.

 

In the poem, Shange interacts with an old man on the train, a man who sells newspapers, and a man who served her coffee. The fear she feels interacting with these men demonstrates how an abuser can be anyone from subway rider to a supreme court appointee.

 

Additionally, in the poem, Shange writes about how she is planning to read about the women that were murdered or abused in the newspaper. However, she only finds an announcement portraying women who were abused as seeking revenge against their husbands. This desire to portray women as seeking revenge and being violent or causing harm is all too common. In Kavanaugh’s opening statement to the Senate, he talked about how his trail is a “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.” He portrays his accuser, Dr. Ford, not as a survivor wanting to tell her truth to the world, but as a weapon of revenge.

 

I loved Shange’s poem because I often feel fear when I interact with men, and I believe that she did a good job of depicting the fear that I, along with other women feel. Additionally, I thought that this poem shed light on the Kavanaugh trial, which is the biggest topic in this news cycle.

 

I attached the video from Kavanaugh’s trail. 

A Daughter’s Geography- A Call for Unity

by Makaria Yami 1 Comment

The poem that stood out to me from the readings this week is Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography. Colonization and the struggle between the powerful and the powerless is something that I often think about and study in a lot of my classes. However, reading Shange’s poem gave me a new perspective on the matter. Amidst the horrors and aftermath of colonization, Shange finds a way to create unity and hope amongst all those who have suffered under imperialist powers:

 

“but I have a daughter/ la habana

i have a son/ guyana

our twins

santiago & brixton cannot speak

the same language

yet we fight the same old men” (A Daughter’s Geography).

 

Throughout her poem, Shange repeats these lines utilizing different cities and countries. She writes about how these geographic locations are different from each other, often speaking different languages. However, they are bonded by the same struggle against imperialist powers, or “the same old men,” as Shange puts it. While the struggle for liberation is an uphill battle, those who are suffering can draw strength from the knowledge that others across the globe are in the fight with them, which is an empowering and beautiful message.

When I first saw Brixton amongst the regions she was talking about, I was wondering why Shange would choose to put a district within the United Kingdom, an imperialist force, within the list. However, I learned that a large percentage of the population in Brixton is of Afro-Caribbean descent. Additionally, in 1981, Brixton was undergoing riots as a result of social and economic problems. This poem by Shange was published in 1983, meaning that the Brixton riots were most likely on her mind. The way that Shange weaves through the globe connecting places of struggle leads me to believe that liberation requires a united global effort.

I’m currently reading Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis. In her book, Davis talks about the “tweets of Palestinian activists used to provide advice for protestors in Ferguson, on how to deal with tear gas” (42). Palestinians and Black Americans “cannot speak the same language,” however their shared struggle allows them to be empowered by each other, which is the point that I believe Shange was trying to make in her poem.