For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf centralizes the essence, process and the work of healing both individually and collectivity. Shange affirms the acknowledgement of sensuality, the embodiment and the reclamation of sensuality. Sensuality that enables women of color to be expressive, to heal and to exist without limitation(s). In Audre Lorde’s essay “Uses of the Erotic” similar sentiments are expressed as well as the Spring 2014 production of an All Self-Identified Women of Color cast Vagina Monologues. These work of arts, though through different mediums speak about self-realization and self-actualization through performance art and healing through recognition of harmful acts that demands and encourages women of color self-deprecation. Recognition and expression of the sensual in service of oneself and other women who are engaged in collectivity work as lorde mentions”For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives” (53). Lorde acknowledges the detriments of suppressing the erotic, which I interpret as being the movement and the acknowledgement of one’s (women’s) ability and capability to love and care for themselves unconditionally and wholly.
The portion of Shange’s foreword to for colored girls that discusses the reaction of black men to its circulation reminded me immediately of a 2012 interview with Junot Diaz and the Boston Review, in which he dissects the same 1980s conflagration between male and female authors of color.
“The brothers criticiz[ed] the sisters for being inauthentic, for being anti-male, for airing the community’s dirty laundry, all from a dreary nationalist point of view” (10).
Shange opens her discussion of the gender-wars with an essentially identical conclusion:
“The reaction from black men to for colored girls was in a way very much like the white reaction to black power The body traditionally used to power and authority interpreting, through their own fear, my work celebrating the self-determination and centrality of women as a hostile act” (11).
She soon ends with the simple assertion that black men were threatened by the reality that their bodies, stories and the powers that articulate them were not the locus offor colored girls’ narrative voice. It was “man-hating,” airing the community’s dirty laundry —a community which, with the through-line of for colored girls, was seen as effectively, publicly betrayed and dismantled. The issue with the reaction of these men is their inability to visualize subaltern communities with anything other than “a dreary nationalist point of view.” You cannot dismantle one portion of an oppressive matrix with one portion of the oppressed peoples; it must be dismantled wholly or not at all, with forces other than the master’s tools.
For Shange, the dramatic text serves to engender collectivity by mapping out social relations that counter normative constitutions of sociality and by establishing a differential mode of collectivity and group sovereignty. “The touching that opens and closes the drama creates links across and between the individual poems, enabling individual innovation and expression within collectivity.” (Colbert). Thebodies through which touch is transmitted are mobilizing new patterns of relationality that descend from traditions fostered among Black women in the interest of healing from and resisting violence. The choreopoem departs from the idealized white body though a narrative that reasserts Black subjectivity/humanity through the intimacy of touch.
The ways in which pain and sorrow shift and are molded into joy and vice versa through dance, touch, collective relationality creates a fluidity of emotion that mirrors the unstable patterns of racialization and gendering from which Black womanhood emerges. The inherently unstable and wavering aspects of Black identity are informed by the constantly changing and evolving needs of an imperialist, settler-colonialist state. The state’s reliance upon Black women’s bodies to re-establish its power and sovereignty demands an ever-shifting motion and (re)formation of Black women’s placement within complex patterns of social relation. Black women operate within these fluid and unstable networks to make meaning of their own subjective realities. We make use of the inherently contradictory aspects of the individual and collective self to suture the rifts and fragments of our narratives. Read More
I think what makes for colored girls so remarkable is the fusion of music, language, and movement that Ntozake Shange mixes together to create this choreopoem. Purposely assigning each lady a color instead of a name creates an extended metaphor. Similar to formation of a rainbow the experiences the the Lady in Blue, Brown, Green, Orange, Pink, Red, Yellow and so forth come together to paint a clearer picture of the experience women of color endure. Shange doesn’t go through the choreopoem without including historical references. She’s purposely gives us something new to learn with each of her works. For example, Lady in Blue expresses her love for Latin music and references the salsa singer Hector Lavoe. I couldn’t continue reading without finding out more about this artist, without Youtubeing Bomba. Even without this urge the incorporation of music and dance layered throughout the poem forces you to engage most your senses.
I’m not surprised that Shange’s for colored girls comes with so much criticism. It’s been labeled by some as “man bashing” (so to speak). I think by even taking up this argument we’re failing to address the contribution that for colored girls adds to the so few narratives out there highlighing the stories of women of color. The details regarding men in this work are difficult to read and at some points gut wrenching to come to terms with, but none the less it is a woman’s story worth telling, it’s someone’s truth.
What continuously strikes me about Shange’s work is her ability to invoke a world of magic composed of whispers, rituals, dances, objects and practices of the everyday. In for colored girls elements of the everyday take on a new life in what they come to represent.
One’s plant is one’s relationship– tended to, watered, and cared for until burdensome:
“this note is attached to a plant
i’ve been watering since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self” (14)
In the wee hours of the morning a woman can soak and soak in a bath until she is transformed:
“at 4:30 AM
she rose
movin the arms & legs that trapped her
she sighed affirmin the sculptured man
& made herself a bath
of dark musk oil egyptian crystals
& florida water to remove his smell
to wash away the glitter
to watch the butterflies melt into
suds & the rhinestones fall beneath
her buttocks like smooth pebbles
in a missouri creek
layin in water
she became herself
ordinary
brown braided woman
with big legs & full lips
reglar” (34)
A woman’s stockings, the glare from street lights, or the last bit of whiskey in the glass are ritual and transformative experiences– yes, coded with Shange’s specific meaning of a time, place, or feeling but mundane enough to evoke entirely different perceptions in those who read her words. In my own work as an artist and photographer, I am inspired by the mundane– my current interest is in the realm of domesticity and the tensions that exist in one’s home space as a place of contrived vulnerability. I return to the above passages over and over again. I’m reminded that the items that are carefully placed on one’s dresser, bathroom sink, or bedside table can be ingredients to a kind of potions or spell. Pictures, lotions, plants, pieces of cloth, stacks of magazines, and tubes of lipstick that induce sleep, soothe an anxious heart, remind you of Spring, and allow you to transform before your own eyes.
The essay “Black Feminist Collectivity in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf” didn’t resonate with me until I got to the 7th paragraph which begins with:”Black women often provide the supplemental, ghostly, and unappreciated labor necessary to maintain the nation-state as an ideal and lived reality.”
The full impact of that line still didn’t hit me until the author talked about the way Beyonce, in singing the national anthem a cappella after being thrown down by press for lip synching it at the presidential inauguration, “reinforced the notion that the black women must pay a national bevy and therefore owe the populace an explanation for the deployment of their bodies.”
Giving up a part of the (or even the whole) self to sustain/nourish/love men is a very female experience. For Colored Girls offers the common understanding of sisterhood as a way to uncover and embrace the music of your spirit, and as a way for women—especially women of color—to reclaim their ownership/pride of the self.
I read the choreopoem while watching/listening to a Middlebury College adaptation. Experiencing Shange’s work as a performance completely changed the way I was able to experience and engage with the text. I want to look specifically at the poems “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff” and “sorry” and how they are in dialogue with each other. The first poem talks about how relationships/men can take from women the very essence of themselves/all that is nourishing (“my laugh”, “my rhythms & my voice” & “my calloused feet & quick language”). The lady in green is the sole woman on the stage, yet watching the performance as a part of an audience, reacting claps and snaps fight the strong presence of isolation onstage. The crowd erupted in snaps after she said, “now you can’t have me less i give me away”. Within the audience exists a common understanding that sometimes for love we—women—give up all of the parts of ourselves that we love. But women need to handle their own stuff. They need to love themselves and stop taking care of themselves last.
There is a blurring of transition to “sorry”. The lights do not dim/there is no re-staging; the other women of color walk out one by one. They talk about how “sorry” isn’t nourishing. “Sorry” doesn’t make up for what men have taken. “Sorry” doesn’t allow women to feel wanted, understood & happy. I think the blurring of borders between the two poems speaks to the narrative as a whole. This isolated experience is easier understood in the company of other women. Shange shows that through sisterhood, women find space to navigate these painful experiences, and are able to find a place to care and love themselves.
Here is the adaptation I watched while reading the choreopoem…
Here are some songs I listened to while watching/reading For Colored Girls…
Shange’s work is rooted within the tradition of black women healing through art, speech, and togetherness. In Sister Citizen (2011), Melissa Harris-Perry writes about this tradition through an analysis of Baby Suggs, Janie’s grandmother in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God:
“Her words are the conduit of healing for an entire community of free blacks who are scarred by the world in which they find themselves. Rather than asking them to deny their pain or to bear it stoically in order to prove their strength, Baby Suggs encourages them to release it through song, dance, open weeping, and togetherness. She also asks the black people assembled in her clearing to embrace a new faith based on reimagining their own bodies as something beautiful and worthy of love.” (Harris-Perry 264)
For Colored Girls seeks to heal black women and girls from their pain through “song, dance, open weeping, and togetherness” as well, but does so in the form of the choreopoem. In “Black Feminist Collectivity in … for colored girls…” Soyica Diggs Colbert explains the significance of this choice: “The choreopoem creates collectivity based on the intertwining of bodies in space and words in rhythm in order to counter the displacement and dehumanization of black women’s voice, bodies, and experiences.” Not only does Shange write about black women healing through collective artistic expression, she also reinforces this tradition by placing her ladies in a physical and psychic collective and artistic space via the choreopoem.
The final poem in For Colored Girls, “a layin’ on of hands” demonstrates what this kind of space makes possible. After the lady in red says “i found god in myself & i loved her,” all of the ladies repeat these lines until it “becomes a song of joy” and “the ladies enter into a closed tight circle”. The voice of one woman, affirming herself and practicing self-love, is transformed into a collective affirmation and practice, through song. Their collective healing is then physically displayed by their closed tight circle. Diggs Colbert writes:
“The final piece, “a layin on of hands,” enacts a ritualized mode of performance that draws from spiritual practices and allows women to connect physically and on equal ground. The engagement of touch and speech offers a way to appreciate communal belonging that affirms black women’s humanity.”
Shange’s work, specifically in For Colored Girls, is so important because of what it adds to black women’s healing traditions and, ultimately, what it makes possible for women’s resistance. By affirming black women’s humanity through art, speech, and togetherness, resistance is made stronger and becomes an act of joy.
This week’s readings reminded me of the song titled, “Young Girls” by New York based Puerto Rican artist Destiny Frasqueri, who performs as Princess Nokia. The music video depicts a group of women of color leading young girls of color in a series of movements, dances, and songs. They are sitting in a tight circle, alone in a natural environment. The lyrics intentionally affirm and collectivize these young girls of color.
For this week’s class I read Vanessa Valdes’ article “there is no incongruence here: Hispanic Notes in the Works of Ntozake Shange,” in which she argues that Shange uses the Spanish language and Hispanic imagery to promote a more inclusive picture of the African Diaspora. Valdes believes that Shange challenges her audience’s idea of the diaspora and pushes for a “more ample definition of blackness,” (Valdes, 133). This essay resonated with a discussion I had in another class where we spoke about the “weight” that the English language holds in literature and poetry (Valdes, 132). In this class we are reading Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s Americanah, in which she italicizes the words in her novel that are not in English. I feel that when an artist writes in English but italicizes words from different languages it automatically others that language and the people who speak it. The very act of italicizing a word makes the letters look foreign compared to everything else. Of course it makes sense to let the reader know that a certain word is not English and therefore may need to be translated, but it makes English seem like the only acceptable language. As English speaking people we often expect and assume that books will be translated into English or written in English, and that any foreign word will be made clear and glossed for our convenience. In my other seminar my professor described the English language and English speaking people as greedy, which I think is somewhat fitting. As English speaking people (especially if it is your first language) we as a whole refuse to be made to feel foreign by the presence of other languages in our texts. I think it is unique and highly intelligent how Shange not only uses Spanish in her poetry, but also never feels the need to qualify the language with italics. Shange places English and Spanish on the same level by refusing to differentiate between the two languages. Valdes explains that “Shange’s readers should be able to read and understand both languages and acknowledge the viability of both, for both narrate the black experience in the Americas,” (Valdes, 132).
