One of my most newer favorite podcasts, Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period, frequently refer to “Black Homework”–elements of culture that are so talked about/ referred to in Black communities, that you can’t really feel in the conversation unless you know about them. Read More
First draft of “A Week-end in Austin/A Poet, the People, & the KKK” – dated 21 February 1983; labelled “not proofread” and “express property of Village Voice…”.
I am interested in evidence of Shange’s self-revision and growth in her papers. Much of her archived work includes edits in the margins–notes, highlights, scratches, and communication with editors and readers. These images represent just some of the many edits and revisions in the Shange Papers, and point to just a few examples of her growth as an artist. In particular, she seems to be focused on including more italics here, which may point to themes or language she is hoping to emphasize in this piece, or more broadly at this time in her artistic development. Read More
This week I found a pretty late addition to my bibliography: Heresies, a feminist journal on art and politics based out of New York. I can’t confidently speak to why it wasn’t on my radar before now, but throughout my research, I’ve tried to focus on unearthing journals by black women rather than just pulling up more prominently circulating mass-media about them, so it’s almost comforting that the latter had been sitting on the back burner. Talking about black feminisms in publications that were, most essentially, predominately by and for white feminists, is a contentious issue, which was concretized as I flipped through the Michele Wallace issue of Ms. for the first time. Heresies, though significantly less glossy and more “academic” in its nature, faces much the same issue.
So I was surprised to find Ntozake Shange’s “with no immediate cause” sitting boldly at the front of the first issue I looked through. With for colored girls having made her somewhat of a celebrity in all feminist circles quite recently, it’s not as though they were featuring undiscovered black writers, but they featured Shange all the same. It’s also nice that the black man pictured at the bottom looks just as upstanding as the white men that surround him, and that the ratio of white to black men was not proportioned to favor the latter. Where I did have problems with the piece, though, is the editorial/cartoon pairing that followed it, which can be seen below. It features, in two pages and many windows with a variety of characters, exclusively white women –implying, consciously or not, that black women are not subject to male violence, or, if they are, they are not the victims of foremost concern. This is especially problematic considering that a black man was shown amongst the portraits of the imagined abusers. The editorial piece is fairly straightforward and unexceptional –focusing on gender and largely silent on race– but in a special issue specifically focused on women and violence, I feel that it is the responsibility of intersectional feminists (i.e. all feminists) to vocalize the unique subjugation of women of color.
During the last session, after Danielle told us that one of her subjects suggested that she just grab an image off the internet, Steve Fullwood reminded the class to neglect public domain images. His example was the NYPL Public Domain Collections which I discussed in a blogpost earlier this semester. However, there are many others.
This second #Archivefind also comes from the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) papers found at the Sophia Smith College Archives.
I have selected a few fliers that speak to one kind of work that these Third World Women and People’s collectives did in the 70’s, which is materializing these collective spaces and making visible their organizing. One of the fliers calls for a picnic and the other two are about organizing for International Women’s Day.
The TWWA states throughout its mission statement and organizational goals that of primary importance is ensuring that all meetings and events account for the children of the women and organizers that come out to these events; which meant setting up a Committee on Childcare and ensuring all events are child friendly or has a sister to watch the kids.
These organizers were also adamant about making these spaces and the knowledges and ideas that came out of these spaces to be accessible.
I am reading these priorities into these fliers to be able to imagine the spaces they created and shared. While we can never fully piece together their full story through the archives and materials they left behind, we can learn and take away elements that resonant with us. In envisioning the spaces I hope to create in the gatherings for my project, I will be drawing from these priorities and literally taking from these fliers to create a collaborative zine.
