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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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Motherhood in Correspondence

by Breana Beaudreault 1 Comment

My favorite finds in the archives that have been related to my project have taken me in directions that I was not initially planning on exploring. Although I recognize that the undercurrent of my projects on forms of care and spirituality will tie in themes of familial relationships and motherhood specifically, I think Zake’s letters pushed me to explore this facet more. In one folder alone, I was able to find three separate letters from Ntozake to her mother that gave a really crucial insight to the way their relationship has grown and changed over time. In the same way, letters that her daughter has written to her grandmother and the way Zake engages her daughter in her letter illuminates that relationship, which shows the lineage and texture of these relationships in the way Ntozake does through her characters. In the first letter I read, which was the one that really drew me to my topic to begin with, was this really magnetic letter she wrote to her parents in October of ’86, discussing some time she spent in a mental hospital (or, the “crazy house” as she calls it) and reassuring her parents of her renewed stability. Here, the letter feels a bit distant as it’s s quite short, which felt to me like the equivalent of a phone call with your parents at home where you try to decide how much to tell them, how much you can let them into your life without worrying them or yourself. Her sense of humor about the whole situation is both introspective and eloquent, as she jokes with her parents “you see, wonders never cease—you get better & stay crazy…”. Almost five years later, you see that this distance has created tension, as she writes a letter to her mother about a time that Zake had stayed with her for a few days and evidently was causing some drama. She writes to apologize (again) for her behavior, which shows equally the strain on the relationship and the investment she has in making it work anyways. Even further down the line, Zake sends a letter to her mother begging her not to reveal Savannah’s true father to her when they visit, showing that she has allowed her mother in her life in some capacity and is trusting her with very sensitive information. A few years after that, there were some documents that suggested that her mother Eloise was trying to help support her financially after she seemed to have filed for bankruptcy and written some checks with insufficient funds. The documents were addressed to her mother and not Zake though they were about Zake’s finances, which suggested to me that her mother just decided to take over or Zake asked for her help. Perhaps this is a sign of progress, or just tracing the ups and downs of that relationship and Zake’s struggles in general, but the pieces that I got helped me to thread a timeline of their relationship a bit better. Savannah’s correspondence with her grandmother shows another relationship entirely, one simply of love in her youth, and her handwriting and style reminded me a bit of Zake. This female lineage traced through correspondence shows the ways that motherhood changes and adapts with both mother and child, and the way that both learn to show love in the ways they know how. It also emphasized this ancestral sisterhood, this hope to never forget that there were so many women who came before.

 

 

Scan 1: letter after stay in mental hospital.

Scan 2: letter from Zake to her mother apologizing for her behavior.

 

 

Scan 3. a card from Savannah to her grandmother. noted: emphasis on this one. reminded me of the title for colored girls.

what’s in a name?

by Onyekachi Iwu 1 Comment

If you were to ask me to list all of the things I identify as — “black”, “woman”, “queer”, “writer”, etc., I think the word “feminist” would follow sometime after the word “tall”. “Feminist” is not an identifier I readily think of as something that defines me. This is not because I don’t believe in a movement that combats the subjugation and devaluing of women globally. Or because I’m not forced to face the devaluing of my own womanhood on a daily basis. I don’t even think it’s because of the history of feminism as a movement that centers the issues of middle-class straight white women, although that may be a contributing factor.

I think my disconnect from the word “feminism” is that it feels like it forces a singularity. I am “woman and”, rather than both of my identities of blackness and womanhood existing simultaneously. I think in a way, I have “chosen” blackness. This is because when I am around black people, I am black and a woman. When I step outside of my community, I feel like I have to choose. In the eyes of “women of color” I am a woman. In front of “white women”, I am black. It is only in black spaces that I feel like both of these identities can inform and live together, especially in the presence of other black women.  I identify more with the idea that I am a black person who is a woman, than a woman who is black.

That being said, I don’t see blackness as something above my womanhood. The spaces I seek out and participate in are those that center black womanhood. The relationships with women I prioritize are with other black women and femmes, not black men. If I were to identify as something relating to radical work to uplift women, I would identify as a “womanist”, like Alice Walker. In her words explaining womanism, she states that a womanist is someone who is: “A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility … and women’s strength. … Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people”. Like Walker, I believe in black women’s, and women of color’s, socialization of being a site of care and healing as possessing profound tools to heal the world and ourselves.This is what i would also use for the radical women of the 1970s/80s.

Even so, I feel like my activism is something I live, not something I necessarily have to name. In that, I would identify as a black woman who prioritizes the healing and care of other black women. I don’t find that the naming of “feminism” makes others more visible to me. Instead, it makes those who carry the values and beliefs I do about radical healing invisible to me. The word “Feminist” groups us all together, making it unclear what we all stand for.

 

What’s in a name?

by Breana Beaudreault 0 Comments

Feminist politics are most certainly a part of my worldview, but I don’t think I have ever called into question the fact that I never use modifiers when I discuss the type of feminism I practice. I think that when the term first came into my consciousness, I was in a very white environment, and because of that, I don’t think they put much thought into modifying the term to what they identify as or believe. These women, I believe, knew that If they were to have to put modifiers on their feminism, they would have to be honest with themselves and recognize their feminism as white. Because of its introduction to me as a more generic, all encompassing umbrella, the concept itself became really nebulous, and I struggled to understand why the women I was surrounded by were so outspoken about women-specific issues, but when students of color or queer students spoke up about microaggressions that made them uncomfortable, they were silent and therefore complicit. Even in spaces for women of color, discussing our solidarity and ways that we could care for and protect each other, these never took place in the framework of feminism or empowerment, but rather basic survival. This is a place where the concept of feminism could have been really driven home for the women who could have used that transformative power in empowerment to push past survival and towards active resistance.  In taking some space from that specific environment and being asked to seriously call into question my sense of morality in another academic setting, it has always felt like a more distant and sterile discussion, a theoretical discussion about very real problems. Although the emphasis on intersectionality has shown me that there are so many ways to identify and do radical work for those communities, I have always struggled in picking one term as I always have felt in-between. Being biracial is an identity I have known and loved since birth, something that my parents always told me to be proud of. Although the duality of identities has provided me with many perspectives and experiences, there is a sense of discomfort in both predominantly white and exclusively black spaces between my peers and I. Even within my black identity, I have always felt the need to choose between identifying as black, which is how society will visually code my mother and I, and being Latina, especially one that was not raised speaking Spanish.  The identifier of afro-latinx was one that I was completely unfamiliar with until I got to college, and the wide acceptance and use of the term showed me that there was a community of people that look like me, and might have some similar experiences.

 

When I discuss radical feminists in the 70s and 80s specifically, I aim to be as specific with my language as the women who I reference have asked me to. How these groups individually are called and what they call themselves is constantly evolving as our vocabulary and understanding around feminism expands and deepens. However, I think that at the heart of it, women within marginalized groups recognize the reality of the multiple oppressions they face, they recognize that their feminism must be intersectional to be feminism at all. Co-liberation is the kind of framework that intersectionality pushes us toward. I think the specificity of Third World or transnational feminisms can be, as I touched on in my presentation, tremendously empowering and clarifies specific membership and focuses. However, even though those two alone share many similarities, there were clear feelings of division on ideas like nationhood and borders. Therefore, I think intersectional feminism is the best catch-all phrase, but the narrower the identities that one can discern for themselves, the easier it is to find those with similar backgrounds, experiences, visions of liberation, and define oneself against generic feminisms like the second wave feminists of the 70s and the white feminists of present day.

Traditions Feed the Soul

by Perry O'Parsons 2 Comments

The first chapter of If I Can Cook/ You Know God Can gave me some things to think about; like about the varying degrees to which holidays carry meaning for different people. This is something I have never really thought about. It had never occurred to me before that holidays that get the most attention and deference are not for everyone (no holiday is). Placing value on one set of traditions A. creates the expectation that everyone else will feel the same about those traditions and B. that those traditions are somehow superior or more important than any others. This could be incredibly demoralizing to anyone who does not subscribe to those traditions and/or their value-systems.

This makes me think about nationally-recognized holidays. How does that work? Who is deciding what should be recognized as a national holiday? Like… thanksgiving?? I do love cranberry sauce on turkey, but why do we eat it on thanksgiving? And WAY more importantly, WHY do we get a week (or about a week) off for thanksgiving? That week off says “this  holiday is important and should be celebrated” and as we know Thanksgiving has some devastating and violent baggage attached to it.

That all being said, for those who might be ignored or harmed by the observation of certain national holidays, there is great pride and strength to be found in reclaiming holidays. As Shange writes in If I Can Cook/You Know God Can: “And so, black-eyed peas and rice or “Hoppin’ John,” even collard greens and pig’s feet, are not so much arbitrary predilections of the “nigra” as they are symbolic defiance; we shall celebrate ourselves on a day of our choosing in honor of those events and souls who are an honor to us.”(7) I think this quote gets to heart of what If I Can Cook is about. Shange is celebrating her traditions, her loved ones’ traditions, and the traditions of the African Diaspora, by exploring the stories behind these recipes she gives them recognition that that they do not get from, for example, the united states government.

Additionally, by documenting these recipes and their stories, she is creating a record for future generations to refer to in order to understand, and establish their traditions. Holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, and easter are often discussed or taught in American schools, meanwhile hundreds, probably thousands of holidays which may be practiced/observed by students in an American classroom, are not taught.

The same principle is at work in chapter one when she cooks a traditional New Year’s Eve meal for her daughter. She is giving her daughter a solid ground to stand on, an assurance that someone came before her, and by carrying on their traditions she is supported by them. Lots people in America don’t necessarily have to think about this dynamic. People who unquestioningly subscribe to the holidays and traditions observed by the government, by those currently in power, are given this support. They don’t have to look for it. Some might say, who cares? It’s just a silly matter of holidays and when school is out for winter break. But, as Shange seems to get at in “What’d You People Call That?” the human soul is fed by traditions and history. She says, “Though I ate alone that New Year’s Eve, I knew a calm I must attribute to the satisfaction of my ancestors. I tried to feed us.”(9) She is feeding her daughter’s soul now, and giving her means to feed it for years to come. Something she might not be given otherwise, or may not discover for many years. What a gift to give your daughter! 

 

Below I’ve listed two Wikipedia pages that I make me realize how many different holidays, which many of which are likely practiced by people in America, are ignored by the designation of Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc. as national holidays.

Here is a picture of one of the covers of If I Can Cook.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_immigration_statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_holidays

Thank you, Shange

by Dayna Beatty 1 Comment

I wanted to write a final, reflective blog post surround what I’ve found in the archives, how I’ve come to understand the importance of the archives we have access to and Shange’s contributions to Barnard’s library, and the importance of fair use and copy right laws when it comes to engaging with the materials we use.

I’ve realize through my visits to the archives the incredible courage and confidence it must have taken Shange to leave not just unpublished work or drafts of documents to us, but personal items, in particular personal journals, for public use at an institution. Her decision to do so not only demonstrates her own strength, but also her confidence in the Barnard College community. To trust such a large group of women with this invaluable and private information showcases how much Shange values our college and the education we receive through it. I can’t imagine sharing my personal information in the way that Shange has, and I wish I had the chance to tell her how truly appreciative I am that she has given Barnard this incredible gift. This donation seems to directly embody Shange’s spirit, her generosity, and the courage I hope to one day exude.

During our in-class activity on Thursday, Professor Hall asked us to reflect on what we wish people knew about Shange and what we learned through this course. My answer to both of these question lies within the archives. I wish more people knew about the archives, how accessible they are, and what they have to offer, because through this course, I learned all of this. Prior to taking this course, I had no idea that Barnard was in possession of the archives, that there was so much material in the archives, or that every student has open access to them. I wish more people were aware of them, because I’ve learned so much about Shange, and by extension myself, through self-reflection inspired by Shange, and by visiting and embracing the materials in the archives. I’ve shared this with my close friends, but in the coming semester I am going to make a much larger effort to encourage my peers and members of the various on-campus organizations I’m a part of to visit and use the archives—that’s what they are there for! We cannot truly appreciate the gift that Shange has given us if we aren’t taking advantage of it regularly.

 

Finally, I wanted to touch on the importance of fair use and copy right, and the need to understand them both. Personally, my concept of these ideas was very surface-level prior to the workshops we had with professionals who deal with these issues every day. The people that produce the works that we are using for this course, our scalar projects and for our educational betterment at large, worked hard to produce the materials they did. It is important to acknowledge and thank the original creators and those that inspire us. I’m grateful that this course gave me a better understanding of these concepts, because these are lessons that I will take with me beyond this class whenever I engage with and use materials that I have not personally created.

For the tech component, I wanted to include a list of Tweets that came out after Shange’s death, of people remembering her spirit and her work. However, there were so many, I would like to invite anyone reading this to check out this link from a website that celebrates and informs women of color, in addition to visiting twitter and filtering for tweets that use the #shange at the end of October.

Unseen: What do we do now that it is seen?

by Tirzah Anderson 0 Comments

Attending the Unseen event was definitely inspiring for me, especially because I saw so many students, faculty, staff, alum, and members of the broader New York community in attendance, which showed that people are interested in understanding the hidden lives of so many that are now being unveiled. However, as someone who cares about active change and work towards social change, I wondered how the event would actually impact the actions of people in the Barnard Community. The two speakers spoke about how this archive would impact the photo editing practices at the New York Times, as editors will pay closer attention to how they are choosing photos and if those photo choices are in any way shaped by biases. However, I questioned the impact this would have on people outside of the world of photo editing who attended the event. Would they actually change their understandings of how race impacts their every day lives or would this just be another event with an interesting topic but a lack of action to combat racism.

My most pertinent question following the event is how do we as people within an elitist community of Barnard make certain ideas or perspectives unseen as well and I hope that I can answer this with due time. I want to ensure that I am not feeding into the erasure of certain voices or ideologies. I hope that we as a college, and that each person that attended that event is actively thinking about the ways they may be silencing certain perspectives because I think even that as a first step could be helpful. However, this needs to go further and people need to take active steps to ensuring that people and communities are seen. Even in our work in different archives, we should be looking to ensure that they are used in such a way that the most unseen and hidden perspectives are brought to light. It is our duty, especially with the access that we have been granted at Barnard and Columbia that we uncover silenced and undermined people and communities in every way we can.

What’s in a name?

by Tirzah Anderson 0 Comments

Like for many of us, I think a major aspect of my feminism stems from my mother and her influences. For me, I still think I am exploring my own “name” for my feminism. Growing up, my mother didn’t use very explicit language or phrasing when she discussed her feminism. Maybe she didn’t have the language to describe her feminism, or maybe she couldn’t find the perfect word for it. She expressed her feminism in actions, in what she said to people, in how she held strength, despite so many forces trying to make her weak, and so many other little acts of feminism that I am proud to have witnessed and hope to continue. Right now, I struggle to define the feminism that I identify with in one word or phrase, but I hope and strive to be persistent, strong, and an example of  what my feminism is. Despite, being unsure of how I would define my feminism, the closest I have come is womanism, probably because Alice Walker was one of my first examples of Black feminist literature. My mother has always talked about and quoted The Color Purple, making Alice Walker and that book an important part of my household and how we think about Black women and feminism. From a literary standpoint,  Celie, Shug, and Sofia were all important parts of the development of my feminist identity but most importantly, I was and am influenced by my mother and the other Black women in my life.

 

In terms of how I would identify the feminists we have discussed in this course, they all have different identities and are all a part of different feminist classifications, but if I had to identify them all under one word, it would probably be transnational feminists. I think that encapsulates these radical feminists in the best way and would be the most useful term to unify their various identities and positionalities, and how those impact their feminism. I think the term transnational will be useful to my archives project, as an overall term, but I hope that I can still identify the differences among these feminists because I think that understanding how these women were different is important to truly understanding their impact.

 

Can food disconnect you from community and culture?

by Tirzah Anderson 1 Comment

For various communities, connections to family often stem from cultural connections, including language, food, and traditions. It is common across cultures that tradition brings family together. Often, these traditions include food, which can create an integral aspect of how culture is shared, created, and passed along to other people in a community. Ntozake Shange and Verta Mae Grosvenor engage with cooking and food as a means of engaging with culture and passage of culture, as well as a way to find commonality between communities and various cultures. In particular, Shange focuses on the various communities in the African diaspora and the foods they eat and produce. Her work signals to ideas of connectivity, especially in the ways that the diaspora was able to create culture that was in many ways similar in taste, style, technique, and ingredients. However, the aspect of their works that I am curious about  is how associations of food, cooking, and eating can infringe upon the passing of culture and connectivity of community.

Grosvenor, in particular, notes that “some people got such bad vibrations, that to eat with them would give you such bad indigestion”(xiii), highlighting that the food and the preparation of food is a vital part of the vibration she outlines, but that the outcome of that is also an integral part of that vibration. Thinking about food, how can who you eat with or how food is eaten change the way that food impacts a person or how it is passed down? I can think of the ways that food may be associated with negative people or memories and how that can make the food have a different impact on someone. For instance, there are foods that are associated with bad memories, maybe a food that made someone sick, or food someone ate when there was conflict at the dinner table and I wonder how that shifts the vibrations.  This may highlight the ways that our physical and psychological qualities influence our food vibrations, impacting the ways that we understand culture and connections. If this negative association, whether it is natural or developed over time, can exist from bad vibrations food might separate people from cultures or communities with which they may be connected to in some way outside of food. I am curious if those negative vibrations be reversed and given new meaning, allowing connections to continue and grow despite these bad vibrations.  

Language and Poetry..for colored girls

by Ariel Leachman 0 Comments

The play deals with a variety of adult topics such as abortion and rape that would make it difficult to teach in its entirety in a high school. The language is also quite graphic in places. Yet, it’s so real, raw and emotional that I just want to share it with my students at the same time. For example, there’s a scene, told by three of the women at once, discussing date rape, that starts, “a friend is hard to press charges against/if you know him/you must have wanted it.” It continues, “ticket stubs from porno flicks in his pocket/a lil dick/or a strong mother/or just a brutal virgin…lock the door behind you/wit fist in face/to fuck…who make elaborate mediterranean dinners/& let the art ensemble carry all ethical burdens/while they invite a coupla friends over to have you/are sufferin from latent rapist bravado/& we are left wit the scars.”  The intensity of Shange’s words, language and diction makes the experience of reading an personal and intimate violation like abortion and rape harsher. Through her words I feel like I am the protagonist, as I feel all the emotions and tensions that exists throughout each poem. I started writing a journal recently and thanks to Shange, I have started to explore my own truth in the ways that I confide in myself though writing. For so long my personal diaries and journals were polished and felt like I couldn’t be honest with myself. In For Colored Girls… I started to appreciate the value of healing through honesty of emotion and sincerity with myself first. I am interested in how Shange shifted the “explicitness” in poetry. I am not well educated on the history of feminist poetry, but I would assume that Shange contributed a lot to the way Black women wrote in poems as expressive as she does.

 

What’s in a name?

by Asha Futterman 0 Comments
I would describe my identity as a person and as a writer in relationship to feminism with the words Black, queer, Jewish, and woman. Each of these markers is an important qualifier to me because of how exclusionary feminism has been and still can be a tool to exclude and invisiblize women who are not white, cis, and straight. I think I learned to name myself as Black and Jewish and woman from my mom, since I was young my mom showed me that being a Black jewish woman is special and something that made me unique in a way I should cherish and feel proud of. She would tell me that if (this was pre-Obama) I was president I would be the first Black woman and Jewish president. Through learning about feminism in this class and before this class, I have always found myself and empowerment in the writings of Black feminists or feminists who analyze the intersection of identity, especially Kimberley Crenshaw, bell hooks, along with poets and artists who sing and write creatively about Blackness and womanhood like Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Jamila Woods, Morgan Parker, and Noname. Many of the Black feminists I’m drawn to show their readers experiences of power and strength and also messiness and pain. If I had to specify my writerly standpoint, I think I would say I write from the standpoint of a messy Black woman.

It’s hard for me to pinpoint a few terms for the all radical feminist in the 70s and 80s because I feel like I would use different terms to describe a feminists like Rich and a feminist like Shange or the feminists in the Combahee River Collective. From our readings, I think a lot of the feminism in the 70s and 80s was or tried to be transnational. While some of the transnationalism was hegemonic, feminist in the 70s made strides to include third world countries in their analysis. While many feminists we read were middle class, they were also anti-capitalist and supporters of workers right. I also think many of the radical feminists in the 70s and 80s that we read about were artists or poets like Shange, Rich, and Lorde. So, if I had to give a title to all of the feminists that we read I would say transnational, anticapitalist, and creative feminists.