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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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the meaning of legacy

by Elizabeth 0 Comments

“Ultimately, as all people of progressive politic do, we wrote this book for you- the next generation, and the next one. Your lives are so vast before you- you whom the popular culture has impassively termed “Millennials.” But I think the women of Bridge would’ve simply called you, “familia” – our progeny, entrusting you with the legacy of our thoughts and activism, in order to grow them into a flourishing planet and a just world.”

– Cherríe Moraga

my grandmothers in august 2017. this was taken after my senior speech.

The past few months, I have been thinking a lot about my own history and how this has informed who, what, and where I am today. Some of this has taken a very literal sense, such as trying to uncover the names of my enslaved ancestors. In a more abstract sense, I’ve also been trying to understand more of the histories of people who may not be related to me by blood, but are connected to me through culture, tradition, and spirit.

 

 

While reading the new introduction to This Bridge Called My Back, I almost laughed at Moraga’s excerpt she included from a letter she wrote to Barbara Smith. In it, she talks about how uncomfortable her own experience was listening to Shange present her work, and how it caused Moraga to realize that in her “development as a poet, [she has], in many ways, denied the voice of [her] brown mother” (26). Neither this, nor the conversation about her physical discomfort was necessarily funny to me, but it seemed ridiculously ironic that this is not only what I was feeling at the beginningof the semester when reading Shange, but it is also how I felt going to Moraga’s talk at Barnard a few months ago.

This to me only emphasizes the solidarity and commonality that Moraga, Shange, and the other folks that contributed to Bridge write about. Our struggles, love, and consciousness can come from different places and times, but are ultimately united. Those Shange learned from brought her to influence Moraga, who both influence me. I will never actually know them, just like I will never know those in my personal history that have influenced me too. Now, I believe that literally knowing them is not what constitutes our relationship, but it is hearing their stories, remembering their legacies, and carrying their work forward to grow the “flourishing planet and just world.”

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

A Daughter’s Geography- A Call for Unity

by Makaria Yami 1 Comment

The poem that stood out to me from the readings this week is Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography. Colonization and the struggle between the powerful and the powerless is something that I often think about and study in a lot of my classes. However, reading Shange’s poem gave me a new perspective on the matter. Amidst the horrors and aftermath of colonization, Shange finds a way to create unity and hope amongst all those who have suffered under imperialist powers:

 

“but I have a daughter/ la habana

i have a son/ guyana

our twins

santiago & brixton cannot speak

the same language

yet we fight the same old men” (A Daughter’s Geography).

 

Throughout her poem, Shange repeats these lines utilizing different cities and countries. She writes about how these geographic locations are different from each other, often speaking different languages. However, they are bonded by the same struggle against imperialist powers, or “the same old men,” as Shange puts it. While the struggle for liberation is an uphill battle, those who are suffering can draw strength from the knowledge that others across the globe are in the fight with them, which is an empowering and beautiful message.

When I first saw Brixton amongst the regions she was talking about, I was wondering why Shange would choose to put a district within the United Kingdom, an imperialist force, within the list. However, I learned that a large percentage of the population in Brixton is of Afro-Caribbean descent. Additionally, in 1981, Brixton was undergoing riots as a result of social and economic problems. This poem by Shange was published in 1983, meaning that the Brixton riots were most likely on her mind. The way that Shange weaves through the globe connecting places of struggle leads me to believe that liberation requires a united global effort.

I’m currently reading Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis. In her book, Davis talks about the “tweets of Palestinian activists used to provide advice for protestors in Ferguson, on how to deal with tear gas” (42). Palestinians and Black Americans “cannot speak the same language,” however their shared struggle allows them to be empowered by each other, which is the point that I believe Shange was trying to make in her poem.

poet as orator/performer/activist; poetry as translation

by Nia 2 Comments

Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography

mozambique
angola
salvador & johannesburg
the atlantic side of nicaragua costa rica
cuba puerto rico
charleston & savannah/ haiti
panama canal/ the yucatan
manila
la habana
guyana
santiago & brixton
near managua/
pétionville
abidjan
chicago
trinidad
san juan
capetown & palestine
luanda
chicago

These are all the places Shange connects alludes to in “Bocas” in A Daughter’s Geography. She names them as her numerous children related though they “cannot speak/the same language.” (Shange). She connects all the children of Africa and the African diaspora through experience not just through heritage. There is the simple explanation for these relationships; the one often invoked by artists and academics alike: that each ethnicity is just a stop on the trade route. Mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons became Basian, Jamaican, American, and Cuban through trade and bartering. They developed new cultures and claimed happenstance for their own.

“but a long time ago/ we boarded ships/ locked in
depths of seas our spirits/ kisst the earth
on the atlantic side of nicaragua costa rica
our lips traced the edges of cuba puerto rico
charleston & savannah/ in haiti
we embraced &
made children of the new world” (Shange)

Shange goes farther than this connection. She unites these ethnicities and nationalities through their experiences of oppression and subjugation at the hands of similar if not the same groups of oppressors.

“but we fight the same old men/ in the new world… the same men who thought the earth waz flat
go on over the edge/ go on over the edge old men”

She credits the experience of being marginalized and overcoming that marginalization as a uniting force of these colored people. The rhythms that emerged, the patios that formed, the food, the names, all point to a common experience. It is no surprise then that she had to make language move. When it moves, no matter what language it is, poems can capture, unite, and uplift her children. It doesn’t matter that one speaks Spanish, the other Portuguese; they use the movement in the poem, the space between the words, the history behind their creation to unite themselves as family.

I added some of my favorite spoken word poets from all over the diaspora.

http://operationelevation.tumblr.com/post/128567513644/bnv15

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.