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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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Black Capitalism

by Brianna Sturkey 0 Comments

In “The Digital Afterlives of This Bridge Called My Back,” the author subtly addresses the complex relationship between academic labor of women of color and unpaid online labor. Arguably this book has been more popular in online communities than in retail, thus introducing the intricacies of economics in regards to women of color. Recognizing that “‘traditional’ classrooms have not always been a welcoming or socially dynamic place for women of color”, the formation of digital classrooms provide “an ‘idealized’ unversity, one the obscures the labor and identity inequalities that have long existed” (259). Although these social networks provide a space for women of color to connect and form their own educational norms, the scholarly labor of the authors goes unpaid. This introduces another form of inequality because of the expectation that this labor by women of color does not deserve monetary compensation, but instead should settle for recognition only. Recognition and compensation are only mutually exclusive categories in the world of people of color and this is terrible choice to have to make. The intention of this book was to be “used as a required text in most women’s studies courses” and the authors did not only “mean just ‘special’ courses on Third World Women or Racism” (260). By reducing this popularity of this book to only online communities serves as a larger disservice for the feminist movement and goes directly against the wishes of the authors of this book. Furthermore, the authors deserve a monetary reward for their scholarly labor and anything otherwise functions as a form of racial exploitation.

This conversation about the how recognition serves as payment for the labor of people of color, reminds me how “Black twitter” is the cornerstone of every major marketing or PR ad. The formation of “Black Twitter” is an informal digital community that formed naturally as a Black people found each other on this social media app and due to their shared life experiences created comedic gold out of their everyday sufferings and traumas. Black twitter is responsible for the major dance, fashion, and slang trends that dominate the modern social scenes. One modern example of the exploitation of this community comes from the video game Fortnite which became highly popular due the characters preforming major dance trends created by Black artists, which then were popularized by Black twitter. However, this video game renames the dances, thus stripping the credibility of the Black artists who created the dances and how they became popular in the first place. This relates to This Bridge Called My Back and how although the book was distributed through online networks such as Tumblr and the authors were unpaid, media corporations such as Yahoo who owns and sells advertising space on Tumblr were indirectly benefiting (256). The truth of the matter is that Black people are innovators and at the forefront of every major trend and discovery, but the lack of compensation renders them invisible in a world that values capitalism over everything. Either America needs to revoke capitalism as the dominate economic system in order to equalize labor regardless of race, or they must begin paying Black and Brown people their worth.

 

women with a little w

by Onyekachi Iwu 2 Comments

My favorite reading from this week’s selection was Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s piece “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”. In this piece, she thoroughly unpacks the problematic ideals Western feminists hold towards how to relate Third World Women. The root of this issue is generalization, attempting to create one “Women” identity that exists in one vague, ahistorical experience that positions women as subordinate. She notes that this concept of Women (capital W) is constructed. Lowercase “women” is real, noting history and specificity that lives in every woman’s identity. This reminded me of Shange’s use of lowercase letters. However, Shange’s use of the lowercase creates the effect of collective, something that blurs specificity and singularity. Here, the lowercase is used to give a sense of grounding, moving away from a “high concept” version of the word rather than representing the women who live in it.

 

In the piece, Mohanty details how Western feminists dangerously characterize Third World Women as “sexually restrained”, “domestic”, “poor”, “family-oriented”, “tradition-bound”, and “uneducated”. In contrast, the Western feminist positions herself as “modern”, “educated”, and “having control over her body and sexuality” (pg.7) The ahistorical nature of dichotomy erases the specificity that exists in every experience of women, that is deeply rooted by their economic, racial, ethnic, religious, and social position. The characteristics given to each “group” lives and effects the other. This dichotomy positions the West in the position of savior, a patriarchal imperialistic figure to “save” Third World Women.

One example of how generalization limits our deeper understanding of Third World Women’s varied experiences is through how the West views the Veil. Often, the West asserts that the veil is inherently misogynistic, a symbol of how the Middle East controls women. However, Mohanty points out how the veil varies from culture to culture. For example, the veil was used in Iran in 1979 as a form of protest against Western colonization and in solidarity with working class Iranian women. This example reminded me of the political comic book, “Persepolis”.In iir, Marjane Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. Due to the revolution, she began to question what it said about her that she chose to wear or not wear the veil.

 

This piece made me reflect in the ways that I almost instinctively fall into the trap of using the “solutions” of our own oppressions onto Third World Women. As a black woman, I struggle to even see myself as living in a “Western” ideology, since this ideology is assumed to be white. However, as a member of Western society, I have internalized some of these paternalistic and imperialistic views, and also do have a hand in the oppression of Third World Women.

 

Why is it so difficult to resist the capital w “Women”? Perhaps it comes with recognizing there is so much work, listening, education, and time we must dedicate in order to fully involve ourselves in this specificity that Mohanty calls for. By maintaining the idea of “Women” as a singular ahistorical identity, we not only are able to sidestep the work of fully unpacking our role in other women’s oppression, we also able to sidestep work that we perhaps would not benefit from.