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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

The importance of using an intersectional lens- Blogpost #4

by Charista 1 Comment

In “Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism” Becky Thompson writes about how some timelines have been published about the emergence and contributions of Second Wave feminism that promotes “hegemonic feminism.”

This outlook is problematic in more ways than one. “Hegemonic feminism” revolves around white communities and continues to oppress women of color by promoting sexism as the true, main oppression. This piece got me thinking about how intersectionality comes into play when thinking about Second Wave feminism and other types of feminism. The lack of an intersectional approach/lens creates a discriminatory and oppressive dynamic that will continue to be ever-present around the world if we don’t fix that now.

The introduction of intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw was meant to provoke thought and idea about the persistence of inequality and discrimination as a result of the oppressive overlap of one or more dimensions of a person’s identity, such as race, gender, and class. In order to understand and explore how multiple forms of discrimination–such as racism, sexism, and classism–intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups, it is crucial to use an intersectional lens. This approach is valuable in that it not only allows people to better digest and comprehend intersectionality, but it also allows for their self-realization and awareness of the role intersectionality plays in their and other people’s lives. With this being said, when exploring different types of feminist groups, just remember that using an intersectional approach will help build resistance to oppression more effectively and help intervene in how people conceive different issues in the first place.

This is one of my favorite Audre Lorde quotes that helps simplify the mission of using an intersectional lens and highlights the importance of intersectionality.

representation and purpose

by Elizabeth 1 Comment

In the podcast “Seeing Yourself in the Archives,” one of the students says, “one of the most important things is to see yourself represented and find purpose, and also heal.” It was interesting to hear representation framed in this way because I typically encounter the term in reference to how vast the lack of representation of marginalized folks is in media, academia, or other spheres is. We typically talk about the costs of lack of representation- negative stereotypes internalized, symbolic annihilation, exclusion, etc. While these conversations are crucial, this framing can at times suggest that representation needs to “happen” in order for non-marginalized folks or exclusive spaces to become educated, inclusive, and diverse. The framing that the student chose instead highlights the positives of representation. Instead, the emphasis is creating art “for us, by us” as a means of finding our own purposes and healing. Based on what we have read from Shange so far, this is something that her work is meant to accomplish. I think of “for colored girls…” and the emphasis it places on the women sharing their individual stories and collective experiences as women of color. For Shange, representation is not supposed to pander to what a white audience (theatrical or otherwise) would expect. Shange’s work’s representation is best summarized by this line:

i found god in myself

& i loved her / i loved her fiercely

It is an opportunity to share and hear one’s individual and collective stories and find healing in those actions.

the tell-tale sign of living

by Elizabeth 1 Comment

For me, Shange’s work is always a bit difficult to read and truly engage with. I find it is often incredibly personal and resonates with me in ways that I am not used to. This week was no different. I was immediately struck by the short blurb after the title.

the roots of your hair / what

mom twisting my hair, 2018

turns back when we sweat, run,

make love, dance, get afraid, get

happy: the tell-tale sign of living

Often, our hair is not talked about in this way. It is something that is straightened, relaxed, brushed down into submission. Even though I would say that I am at a point where I definitely have more appreciation and love for my hair (but maybe not so much about all the time it takes to do it), this was still incredibly impactful. To equate nappy hair with natural acts that are a part of everyone’s lives like sweating and running, to joyous moments like dancing and making love, and to even link it to our feelings like happiness and fear not only naturalizes our happy, but celebrates it.

The power that Shange is naming in this part of Nappy Edges is not inherently sexual, but to me it is an erotic power.  Lorde classifies and defines the erotic throughout her piece to expand its definition from simply being sexual. She says it is a false belief that “only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong” (53). When I read this, my mind immediately went to the aforementioned part of Nappy Edges. As Shange links Black hair to the idea of living, our hair can be understood both as a literal object that is suppressed by white supremacy, and as a metaphor for how lives, feelings, and actions are taught to be suppressed as well. Lorde dismantles the idea that the erotic should be suppressed and instead argues that it is a form of power, which is very in line with the work Shange does in Nappy Edges and other pieces. Just as Shange and Lorde are able to recognize the power of the erotic, Blackness, and nappy edges, I can also begin to recognize the power in the discomfort I have with Shange’s work, which in itself is a tell-tale sign of living and living as Black.

Healing Justice and Ancestral Calls – Makeen Blog Post #3

by Zachery 1 Comment

Recently, I have been thinking extensively about how the individual engages with the community. This is largely connected to Ntozake’s emphasis on the prioritizing of individual liberation to achieve communal freedom in Nappy Edges. The concept of the individual role within a community also arose in my reading of the goals of the Black and Feminist Art Movements in The Art of Transformation by Lisa Gail Collins. Many of my thoughts have framed this as a dilemma of the individual vs. the collective. The Healing Justice event encouraged me to think otherwise.

 

The event opened with the calling of the names of our ancestors into the space. Specifically, we were asked to call the names of ancestors that follow us into every room that we occupy. I began thinking of names of my genetic ancestors that I could remember. Then I heard the workshop leaders calling the names of Audre Lorde, of bell hooks, and I began to think more broadly of what ancestry is. I called the names of Ida B. Wells, of Maya Angelou, of the women whose work my mother made sure I was familiar with from an early age. I began to think also what it means for these ancestors to follow us into the spaces we occupy as individuals. For someone to follow you into a space means that you are never alone. And even as we navigate our moments of solitude, our navigation is very much so guided by those who came before us. As a result, I truly did have to deconstruct my former understandings of isolation and solitude.

 

I had come to understand solitude as a being alone, separate and disconnected. This understanding of solitude has bled into my understanding of the individual. However, with this thought in mind of who follows me into the room, I was forced to think of how even my thoughts and how I carry myself have been formed and nurtured by those who came before me. It also forced me to view the individual and the collective not as being in competition with each other but as two entities that need each other to survive. I thrive as an individual because of the communities that existed before I was even here. My contributions as an individual to the communities that I exist within now are fueled by those that allow me to thrive on my own. Being in the space of the Healing Justice event, hearing the names of ancestors exit the mouths of every individual in the room, while seated in a circle truly helped me visually and audibly recognize that the individual does not have to be and is never alone. If it weren’t for this communal space, I would not have come to this realization for myself.

 

It was so wonderfully captivating to watch Ebony Noelle Golden and Tiffany Lenoi Jones embody what I hope to one day be capable of. To honor the past while navigating how to move forward. To acknowledge the many ways in which we’ve been positively influenced while shedding the negative influences that have skewed our perceptions of our past and present.

Eroticism as Poetic Introspection

by Eliana 1 Comment

In Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde speaks to the importance of autonomy and self-ownership of black female bodies — to be a source of pleasure and introspection “self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society” (Lorde, 59). Lorde writes, “The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings” (Lorde, 54). Lorde is discussing something deeply internal, which goes against the common placement of eroticism exclusively in the realm of the external or physical. To both Lorde and Shange, sense of self is paramount, speaking to the inherent bond between poetry and eroticism.

On page 55, Lorde writes, “women so empowered are dangerous.” In Nappy Edges, Shange too puts sexual expression in conversation with danger, but does so to relay an entirely different message. Shange brings out the apparent irony in Lorde’s statement through examples of men using eroticism to put women in positions of physical danger. These instances of danger present through Nappy Edges’ detailed scenes of sexual violence are physical, and yet they are far from erotic.

Shange’s decision to define herself as a poet (rather than a playwright) is powerful in that it establishes ownership of her narrative — she is not writing to put on a performance or to wear a costume of another, she instead writes her own poetic, deeply introspective, narrative. “Some men are poets. They find wonderment & joy in themselves & give it to me. I snatch it up quick & gloat. Some men are poets” (Shange, 20). Shange then closes her piece reaffirming her stance as the poet she is by noting that she will keep writing poems ten years from now and beyond; she will continue to affirm her own selfhood and that of other black women finding their voices and owning their narratives, as this introspection of poetry and eroticism is a luxury not afforded to many women, especially not women of color. Thus, For Shange, poetry is something erotic in the way Lorde uses the word — it’s a source of power through raw recognition of internal consciousness and internal desires.

manifestations of lorde’s erotic within Nappy Edges

by Johnson 1 Comment

“the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that the sensation is enough” (Lorde, 54)

“When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, or history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives”(Lorde, 55).

“Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluation those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives” (Lorde, 57)

 

What makes Audre Lorde’s text, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” such a compelling text for me every time I read it, is her capacity to isolate the concept of “the erotic” found within all of us and clearly break down its power and its uses. Every time I read this text, I can single handedly point out manifestations of the erotic within my life, and ways that my surroundings confuse the erotic for what she refers to as “the pornographic” (Lorde, 54) and perpetuates it daily. 

In my reading selections of Shange’s Nappy Edges, her acute knowledge and acceptance of the erotic within her work shines throughout the piece. A collection of poetry and prose poetry, I find Shange in assessing and communicating the erotic often makes a cleverly biting attack to that which doesn’t serve us—the pornographic. Specifically looking at the poem, “wow… yr just like a man!”, Shange chronicles the experiences of a female poet in a male dominated poetry space, who was initially revered by male poets because of her abstraction from “female” things in her work, until one day she exclaims, “i’ve decided to wear my ovaries on my sleeve/ raise my poems on my milk/ & count my days by the flow of my mensis” (Shange, 16). What makes this moment such a wonderful example of a woman leaning into the erotic is not really rooted in its clearly feminine references, it’s instead to me in her choice of looking within herself and rooting her medium of expression within what moves her. That is powerful. And it is just that practice in speaking to what moves her, that Shange employs within all of her works but particularly Nappy Edges. For some reason, I felt the most connected to Shange as a young woman within this reading of her selections. I saw and felt her throughout all of her poems, and I feel that connection is rooted in her level of comfort with expressing the erotic in her poems. 

What I find most wonderful about the connection between Lorde and Shange’s understanding of “the erotic” is their shared experience and understanding of the intimate nature poetry and the erotic. Lorde finds little difference between “writing a good poem and moving into the sunlight against the body of a woman [she] loves” (58), and Shange believes that “a poem shd fill you up with something…a poem shd happen to you like cold water or a kiss” (24). It is in that understanding of the erotic that makes their work so poignant and timeless. 

 

Taylor Post #3

by Thompson 2 Comments

“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives” (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider 36)  

A through line I would like to bring forward in this post that I found salient in all three of our readings is this concept of consciousness raising as well as the very function of art and poetry as means through which to facilitate a generative and essential fullness in our lives–which is perhaps a facet of liberation itself. In Lisa Gail Collins rehearsal of the Black Arts Movement and the Feminist Art Movement, Lisa meditates on the importance of consciousness raising as a means for crafting ones imaginary for liberation and for learning how to self define oneself and be more responsible about the ways one moves through the world. I read this as an effort to deliberately and “responsibly” shed light on the affective map of ones life and see the ways in which it overlaps, clashes, and exists in space and with others. 

In Nappy Edges, Shange writes that “we ourselves suffer form a frightening lack of clarity abt who we are. my work attempts to ferret out what i  know and touch in a woman’s body” (21). Here I read that she values the ability to self reflect and self reflect with clarity and quality about the way that we move through space. Shange goes on to articulate that poems are “essential to our existence” and moreover, when ruminating on ‘what poetry should do’ she writes that “poems should fill you with something” (24). 

Audre Lorde in “Poetry is Not a Luxury” of course argues that poetry is not a luxury. Instead she argues that it is a “revelatory distillation of thought” which brings forth ideas that are ‘felt but not yet birthed fully’. In its revelatory nature, it functions as a “quality light” which allows us to better understand ourselves and the world through teaching us to listen and read for what affects us. What moves us, what makes us feel full and feel fully (in a world where we were “not meant to survive, not as humans” and how to do we facilitate that fullness as ritual?

Poetry.

These readings intersected at a critical juncture of affect, the erotic (Lorde) and self-consciousness—three things that the academy within which we function does not value. As Lorde urges us to learn to respect what affects us, respect our feelings and that which does not yet have language and furthermore, demand more of our institution of learning I begin asking myself more and more how I can turn to poetry and art making as a medium for articulating certain facets of liberation and liberatory praxis how I can facilitate art as a medium for connection. 

a practice in being present: a reflection on the Healing Justice Shange Event

by Johnson 1 Comment

Something I’ve been in deep rumination about this year is the amount of time I spend outside of the present in my daily life. A Pisces child, I’ve always been prone to dissociation from my reality into lands of my own creation. However, as college became a more tangible part of my life, I find myself so often preoccupied with anxiety-ridden thoughts of the future that I often fail to be properly present in spaces. This lack of consistent presence only hinders me from properly acknowledging and addressing issues that arise in my life in real time, and I am left often in rumination of particular life events weeks and sometimes even months later. This delay in my experiencing of self, has filled me with much consternation of recent especially as I get older and further develop and explore parts of myself. 

This semester, however, I’ve begun to realize the acute importance and power in presence and have taken measures to intentionally include practices that allow me to feel completely within a space. What made the “Emergency Care of Wounds That Cannot Be Seen: Healing Justice & Ntozake Shange” event such a transformative and healing moment for me was  how present everyone was, and was allowed to be. Although it was about reflecting, honoring, and thanking Ms. Shange for what she has contributed to our individual and collective lives, I find that it was as much about us as it was about her. The configuration of the room being a collection of chairs placed in a circle surrounding Shange’s altar, emphasized that it was just as much about seeing and appreciating her as much as it seeing each other, experiencing these moments as a collective. Within their expressions of gratitude to Shange, Cara Page, Ebony Noelle Golden, and Tiffany Lenoi Jones brought so much life into the space, while also challenging us to interrogate our positionalities and the ways in which it influences the amounts of space we feel entitled to take up. They stood to remind us that the words and impacts of Shange belong just as much to us as it does to them, and we shouldn’t fear the things that may arise in our spirits when in Western academic spaces. Although I find it a difficult and jarring feat to express myself and feelings whenever I feel them arise within the confines of this institution, I do value the reminder that I am allowed to take up as much space as possible.

A particular statement that I took away from this event that I feel is applicable not only to this course but the larger trajectory of my life’s work, was Ebony’s statement in regard to Shange, “I am a daughter of her imagination.” In a world where Black Women were habitually misunderstood, compartmentalized, oversimplified, and violated, Shange saw our inherent value and created worlds where we are central, multidimensional, human, and HEARD. It is in that acknowledgment and insistence on making sure through writing that we know that we are heard and not alone that her indelible impact lies. 

Since coming to college, I’ve stopped writing poetry as much as I used to. What used to be an outlet for me to interrogate my feelings in real time, and allow myself moments of presence, had almost completely disappeared. However, last night I felt not only mobilized but that it was some sort of duty of mine to chronicle my thoughts and experiences in writing, if not for the healing of others, for the healing of myself. As Suzan Lori-Parks stated in her play, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, “You should write it down because if you don’t write it down then they will come along and tell the future that we did not exist” (243). We exist, and we are inherently valuable and have a duty to remind and heal ourselves if not through writing through collective gathering, and it was this event that drove this point in for me.

 

Thank you Professor Hall and Professor Miller. Thank you Vani Natarajan. Thank you Cara Page, Ebony Noelle Golden, and Tiffany Lenoi Jones. Thank you members of the Shange Worlds Healing Committee. And most of all Thank you Ms. Shange for all of your efforts in making sure we are seen, heard, and can heal.

 

Reconciling the Necessary and the Real

by Ortiz 1 Comment

In reading The Art of Transformation, I understood the necessity for a unified culture in the
“struggle for freedom,” as described by Collins, but as I continued reading the accounts of individuals at the time, I was conflicted by what they believed to be a necessity in the movement for freedom, and what I believed to be essential in the creation of an individual identity.

“We stress culture because it gives identity, purpose, and direction. It tells you who you are, what you must do, and how you can do it,” – Maulana Ron Karenga

This dependency on a united, practically homogeneous culture for an identity, on the surface appears to be inclusive, a place where those normally excluded from culture can create and find refuge. Yet, I struggled to understand why culture should dictate the entirety of one’s identity, what they “must do” and how to do it. It’s almost restricting the purpose of an identity and culture to something completely political. What must we do, and how do we do it? What are the tactics that we find in this culture, and how do I execute them? This notion of culture and identity has an agenda, and must we embed our entire being into a political purpose, regardless of how badly we need it?

Also, how can one culture, a culture specifically tied to African descent account for the varied, mixed identities that still identify as Black? In takin a solo / a poetic possibility / a poetic imperative by Ntozake Shange, Shange acknowledges how limiting this concept of a homogeneous, unified culture can be.

“that means there is absolutely no acceptance of blk personal reality. If you are 14, female & black in the u.s.a./ you have one solitary voice/ thought you number 3 million/ no nuance exists for you/ you have been sequestered in the monolith/ the common denominator as a persona”

So how do we reconcile the necessity for a black culture without the violent exclusion of so many? Even now in the age of social media, there is an image of black culture that is entirely too narrow, too limiting. How can we repair this rupture between what is necessary and what is real, as Shange addresses in Nappy Edges?

The power and beauty of self-expression– Blogpost #3

by Charista 1 Comment

Audre Lorde writes in “The Uses of the Erotic,” that oppressive systems have created a “false belief” of the erotic with pornography, creating a “distrust” and “fear” in women of their erotic power. She explains, “For this reason we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic.” I’ve been thinking a lot about how censorship has limited expression and creativity due to fear of being judged, shamed, and miscategorized into the pornographic. 

I think if the erotic was used as a “source of power that has the ability to create change,” like Lorde writes, then the female gaze would be more prevalent in society. Lorde writes, “[the] erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.” Women often see themselves as objects to be looked at by men in art, on film, and in society all the time, so using the erotic as power tears down the idea that the female body is controlled by men and would empower women further to explore and express their sexuality. 

Lastly, I think one of the most powerful points of discussion in this piece is Lorde’s clarification that distancing ourselves from the power of the erotic is “not self-discipline, but self-abnegation.” Lorde’s encouragement of using the erotic as self-expression is pivotal especially in the society we currently live in. The power of the erotic is important not only because of the power it holds in itself, but also because of the energy it gives ut to “pursue genuine change within our world.” By using the erotic in this way, I now realize how it can possibly help empower us to go beyond and accomplish more things with this sense of self-liberation. Because ultimately, the power and beauty of self-liberation and self-love can take you almost anywhere.