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“A Dying Colonialism” and its ties to “Porque tu no m’entrende”- Chelsea Blogpost #1

by Chelsea A. 1 Comment

Every rejected veil disclosed to the eyes of colonialists horizons

until then forbidden

piece by piece- the flesh of Algeria laid bare

Every veil that fell,

every body that became liberated from the traditional embrace of the haïk–

every face that offered itself to the bold and impatient glance of the occupier–

was a negative expression,

of the fact that Algeria was beginning to deny herself,

and was accepting the rape of the colonizer.

Algerian society– with every abandoned veil,

seemed to express its willingness

and attend to the master’s school,

and to decide to change its habits-

under the occupier’s direction and patronage.

-Algeria Unveiled, “A Dying Colonialism” by Frantz Fanon (42-43)

Reading this passage by Frantz Fanon captured my attention in the way that Fanon details the impact of colonialism on the women in Algeria under France’s rule. The pressures that many Algerian women were faced with between what was their normal ways of dressing and what the native culture accepted, versus what the infiltration of European colonialism deemed restrictive and having tp adapt to the new culture. This passage has added onto my already existing knowledge of what life was like for many African nations under the rule of European powers. And these restrictions expanded beyond the continent as well. Even during the times of slavery and Jim Crow, black women were (and still are) subjected to the European standard of beauty. The way that white women looked and dressed was to be envied and copied.

It’s interesting to see that the pressures of fitting into the societies that white people have crafted, is a dilemma that women of color have been facing for over 400 years now. What was normal for women prior to European contact is now seen as uncultured and barbaric. When white people come into a society and try to change what was already there, it seems that what they bring to a country and its culture is the “right way” to do things. When the European standard of beauty is forced upon women of color, we tend to doubt ourselves and eventually give into the standards. In the case of the Algerian women, the decision to take off the haïk and wear less clothing is like accepting defeat and allowing the colonizer to dictate how women should be allowed to dress. Anything that is traditional is barbaric and “limits” the rights of women.

As Shange says in “Porque tu no m’entrende?”, we must “break through the grids of colonial contrivance and discover who has truly been round and about us, who is round and about us”. This is how I relate both of these examples to my own life. As a curvy black woman with type 4 natural hair living in America, I still face these colonial restraints that stemmed from my great great grandmothers all the way down to me. If one thing has not changed, it’s the fact that we all dealt with the pressures of the European standard of beauty. It causes you to doubt yourself. How will people think of me when my hair is in its natural state? Am I less desirable because I am not on the thinner side of the weight spectrum? Am I not worthy enough because my skin is darker? Should I become something that I am not? These are the questions that I am faced with as I walk through this world. One thing for certain that I have learned from both texts is that the European standard of beauty has always been there, but it is now my job to break the grids of colonial contrivance and love me for who I am.

My Take “On National Culture”- Samaha Blogpost One

by Hossain 1 Comment

“On National Culture” 

“The native intellectual nevertheless sooner or later will realize that

you do not

Shaheed Minar in Bangladesh erected in honor of the Language Movement

show proof of your nation from its culture, 

but that you substantiate its existence

in the fight, which the people wage,

against the forces, of occupation.

No colonial system draws its justification from the fact that the territories are

culturally non-existent.

You will never make colonialism blush

for shame, by spreading out little-known cultural treasures, under its eyes.

 

what he [the native intellectual] ultimately intends to embrace are

in fact, the castoffs of thought,

Women resisting during the Bengali Liberation War in 1971

its shells, 

and corpses, a knowledge

which has been stabilized once and for

all.

 

he must go

on until he has found the seething pot–

of which the learning of,

the future will emerge” 

(Fanon, 223 and 225).

For this week’s blog post, I chose Frantz Fanon’s piece, “On National Culture.” It stood out to me because it seemed to have a lot in tandem with what Shange was writing about in “my pen is a machete.” Throughout her piece, she was writing to dismantle the oppressive imposition of the English language unto Black people and those oppressed within the United States, which was evident in the way she chose to spell her words and use breaks that felt familiar to her. Fanon had similar feelings as he continually expressed his discontent with colonial efforts to erase national identities. He suggests that the cultural identity of a nation emerges after its liberation. From my understanding, he poses liberation as distancing one’s  identity from European hegemonic entanglement. He also suggests that searching for an identity solely connected with one’s ancestry and past, may leave one feeling unfulfilled in the present. Thus, he suggests that breaking free from these binary thoughts may foster a new national and cultural identity.

The excerpt I chose to rearrange into a poem delineates these three phases that he speaks in a beautiful way, while depicting the struggle and the extent needed to combat the oppression of not just the English language and art, but European impositions upon colonized people. I inserted a picture of Bangladeshi women carrying guns and protesting during the Bengali Liberation War in 1971. This example resonates with me and this post because it exemplifies radical protest and revolution against the colonial Pakistani rule during that time. I think that it also connects back to Shange’s readings for this week because the liberation war grew out of the Bengali language movement, during which, Bengalis fought for their mother tongue, under Pakistani rule. Thus, all of these moments in history coincide in the way that they struggle and radicalize around an identity and against an oppressive, often, colonial force. This is meaningful to me because as someone non-white born in America and having never visited my mother country, I sometimes debate the politics of  my belonging in the U.S. I think Shange’s rearrangement and ownership of the English language to serve her work is radical and inspiring, and it is a direction towards continuing decolonial projects. Her pen is her machete, and I await to find my own.

Philosophical Underpinnings–from movement to breath?

by Kim Hall 0 Comments

Ntozake and Savannah Shange (PBS screenshot)

i can’t count the number of times i have viscerally wanted to attack deform n maim the language that i waz taught to hate myself in/ the language that perpetuates the notions that cause pain to every black child as he/she learns to speak of the world  & the “self”  (LLS 19).

in everything I have ever written & everything I hope to write/ i have made use of what Frantz Fanon called “combat breath” (LLS 19).

 In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture.
—Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born 

. . . a woman who can believe in herself, who is a fighter, and who continues to struggle to create a livable space around her, is demonstrating to her daughter that these possibilities exist

—Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (247)

I wanted to tell you a bit about why we are reading Fanon and Rich today. (The readings are now linked to the appropriate week on the syllabus–and we will have presentations from Elizabeth and Anna Bella!)  Shange reads so widely that we could spend an entire semester reading her identified influences from Ngugi wa T’iongo and Edouard Glissant to  Judy Grahn and Jessica Hagedorn.  Fanon’s influence as you will see below, is pretty obvious in Shange’s thoughts about breath and

Grappling with the “Postcolonial”

by Nadia 0 Comments

 

My Africana courses this semester have forced me to grapple with the term “postcolonial.” I have learned that this word is fraught because it describes a time period or phenomena which is defined or continues to be influenced by the traumas of colonialism.The Black World Editor’s Note summarizes this point well: “black people on both sides of the continent have very similar problems and a common source: that of colonialism and enslavement” (SOS 207). Even after countries have received independence, they still hold the burden of dealing with the effects of colonialism and, in many cases, watch a new breed, namely, neocolonialism, evolve.

Artists and writers have dealt with contemporary issues affected by colonialism in their work. In “To Make a Poet Black” Michelle Joan Wilkinson states, “the 1960s generation of Black Arts poets imagined themselves as black magicians making black poems in and for a black world” and “the new slogans included “art for people’s sake,” “art for survival,” and even “art for the revolution.” However, this type of activism through art does not only apply to the black community. Instead of allowing the postcolonial to be a divisive agent that separates people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds from each other, writers like Ntozake Shange (African American) and Victor Hernandez Cruz (Puerto Rican) display “diasporic consciousness and cross-cultural poetics” in their work, terms Ron Hernadez used to describe publications like Umbra magazine (Latin Soul 334).

Shange demonstrates her solidarity with those of the diaspora in Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography as a result of a shared colonial past:

there is no edge

no end to the new world

cuz i have a daughter/ trinidad

i have a son/ san juan

our twins

capetown & palestine/ cannot speak the same

language/ but we fight the same old men

the same men who thought the earth waz flat

 

In a similar way, Cruz’s writing reflects  “a poetics of tensions between Spanish/English, rural/urban, and vernacular/literary cultures” (Latin Soul 335). This poem La Lupe illustrates the connection between Cuba and New York:

 

She embodied in gowns, capes,

dresses, necklaces, bonnets,

Velvets, suedes, diamond-studded,

flowers, sequins,

All through which

she wanted to eat herself

She salvaged us all,

but took the radiation.

Each time she sang

she crossed the sea.

From the Bronx

she went back to Cuba,

Adrift on the sails

of a song.