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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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The Personal Is The Political

by Nadia 1 Comment

In my Black Scholar readings and my trip to the Schomburg, I was confronted with the message that the personal is the political. The Black Sexism Debate states,

“We cannot solve our “personal” problems individually, nor by pretending they are not real. What is required is a collective struggle to change the social conditions that create so many “personal” and social problems.”

In thinking about my final project, I have been interested in mental health and mental illness in communities of color and how it is dealt with both individually and collectively. During the Schomburg visit, I came across an article written by Vanessa Northington Gamble which referenced mental health issues in the black community. For Gamble, her “personal” issues battling depression are political. When she was having difficulties at her job due to her depression  she said, “I believed that my performance [work] represented not that of an individual, but that of a race.” This illustrates how mental health issues are political issues in communities of color because individual experiences get generalized to be representative of the whole race. As Gamble also writes about her mother’s suicide attempts and thus, her subsequent struggle with depression, there seems to be the idea that mental health issues are in some way generational and/or genetic.

Gamble's article from the Schomburg archives

Gamble’s article from the Schomburg archives

Gamble invokes bell hooks in arguing that the personal is political. When Gamble wanted to start writing about her battle with depression, her colleague criticized her for: “wanting to put her business out on the street.” However, she counters this by emphasizing that voicing our personal struggles is key to liberation. Gamble says,

“Telling our stories, hooks insists, is a crucial strategy for the self-recovery of black women because it allows us to acknowledge our pain, reach out for solace and find ways of healing. There is no healing in silence… hooks views personal transformation through a political lens. She sees self-hate, low self-esteem, and addiction disorders as reflections of a political system that devalues the lives of black people… Personal recovery, hooks argues, must go hand in hand with political struggles, because no level of individual self-actualization alone can sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to collective struggle, to communities of resistance that move us outwards, into the world.”

In my readings and encounters with archival material, I was struck by how the two were in conversation with each other. It is my hope that through my final project that I can bring Shange’s experience and that of other black female artists’ to the forefront so that other women of color can be empowered with the knowledge that their “personal” is political.

the girl-child: finding a way to have/ her life

by Danielle 1 Comment

At first glance, I read “is not so gd” as “g-o-d” vs. “g-o-o-d”. I wonder if the abbreviation is supposed to make us think of god/ the idea of god at all. Does god exist from the moment a girl is born? Or is god a kind of love women must find within themselves? I thought about these questions as I read “is not so gd to be born a girl” closely.

For the first time, I read the slashes as the word “slash”. The imagery of violence in this choreoessay is more potent than any other I’ve read thus far that verbalizing the word “slash” felt relevant. Shange’s pen feels visceral—the slashes like machetes—carving a rhythm of violent protest. Her word choice—abominable, cutting, glass, scissors—conjure images of a war on the “girl-child”.

at least women cd carry things & cook/ but to be born a girl is not good sometimes

At the start, Shange makes a striking comparison between women and girls. Women can “carry things” (they have physical strength) and “cook” (they know how to care for/sustain themselves), while girls cannot; they are old enough to be taken advantage of but too young to fathom how to carry the weight of their experiences. Instead of writing “sex” and/or “rape”, Shange chooses the juvenile “you know what” to invoke a child’s perspective; it can be difficult for a girl/child to imagine a concept too mature for her age even if she has experienced it.

As violent as the choreoessay is, Shange does not sensationalize the physical threats of being born a girl. She defines words, like ‘infibulation’, and works out an equation, “virginity insurance = infibulation” to be matter-of-fact about the reality. Scientific descriptions of the way female genitals are maimed feel akin in tone to ingredients/ steps in a recipe, a recipe for a “girl-child” born to have the ‘child’ murdered. Her delivery is raw and compact. The paragraphs are long, and without any blank spaces Shange sometimes crafts; only the last few lines relieve some space.

we are born girls & live to be women who live our own lives/ to

live our lives/

to have/

our lives/

to live.

We’ve talked a lot in class about how her work often finds magic in the mundane. In this choreoessay, I’m curious whether the structure suggests that the mundane can also be suffocating and painful for a “girl-child” who has no control. Hope seems to live in the future of womanhood  (“we are born girls & live to be women who live our own lives”), a time when girls will have grown able to respond to the threat of their destinies. I’m struck by the slash between “to have” and “our lives”. I think back to Shange’s title/phrase “my pen is a machete”. My interpretation of the ending is that women have the tool to write the connection between having/owning their own lives.

Some questions I still have…in the choreoessay, Shange writes “for some of us & we go crazy/ or never go anyplace”…is crazy juxtaposed with anyplace? Can crazy be a place a person goes to? What does it mean to go crazy?

On to the Schomburg! #BlackArchives

by Kim Hall 0 Comments

I hope everyone is having a bit of a breather this long weekend.   Our next class meets at the Schomburg Center for African-American Culture to introduce you to the wealth of resources at the Schomburg and continue the discussion of archival practice Shannon started with us during Ntozake’s visit.  I’d like us to follow the plan for the original visit, which was to read around in the “Black Sexism” special issue of The Black Scholar.  You don’t have to read it from cover to cover, but certainly look at enough to get a sense of the nature of the controversy in its time. Tiana wrote a blogpost on the Black Sexism debate when we were supposed to have visited the Schomburg in October. You can find both a link and full PDF on Courseworks.

We are extremely fortunate to have Steven G. Fullwood, Assistant Curator for the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, as our collaborator and archival guide.  Steven has vast experience in acquiring, managing and promoting the use of archives from groups whose lives can escape the radar of traditional archival practice. Under his stewardship, the Schomburg has developed a robust “In the Life Archive” which acquires and preserves historical materials created by and about queer life of people of African descent.  He is most recently co-editor of the anthology, Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call, which is a finalist for a Lambda literary award. You can read an interview with Steven here.  Steve suggests looking at a 1989 episode of the Phil Donohue show on Black Women Writers featuring Ntozake, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis and Alice Walker– a rare moment of mainstream media attention to Black women intellectuals that shows how visceral the debate was years after for colored girls . . .

Obviously, Ntozake Shange’s main archive is here at Barnard (yeay!), but Steven will introduce us to other collections related to topics/people we have covered in class, such as the Michelle Wallace,  Larry Neal and Umbra collections.

The Schomburg is on Malcolm X at 135th street (across from Harlem Hospital)

515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10037.  The closest transportation is 2/3 and M7 bus. From campus, you can also take the M60 to Malcolm X and walk uptown,

I know it’s off the beaten path for switching classes, but please do everything you can to get there on time.  I am going early, but if there is a group going together, the College will have a metrocard for you to share, so let me know.

For some reason, images aren’t uploading, so I will update later.

Bad Girls In Three Parts: Reading “The Black Sexism Debate”

by Tiana Reid 0 Comments

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You bad girl

You sad girl

You’re such a dirty bad girl

— Donna Summer, “Bad Girls” (1979)

What correct analysis of this rotten capitalist dragon within which we live will legitimize the wholesale rape of black women by black men that goes on now within every city of this land?

— Audre Lorde, “The Great American Disease,” in “The Black Sexism Debate” issue of The Black Scholar (May/June, 1979)

 

How are we to read the 1979 special issue of The Black Scholar on the so-called “Black Sexism Debate”? What word in this title is up for discussion? (Hint: It’s the not the “black” part.) What does it mean that we are in the realm of a named dialogue? What does it mean that we have to name this discussion that is always up for debate? How do we confront the seemingly antiquated (read: racist, patriarchal, and biological) language that permeates the occasion for the issue, Robert Staples’s “The Myth of Black Macho: A Response to Angry Black Feminists”?

In this post, I’m not going to rehash any of the arguments from the issue or offer any of my own in part because I can imagine June Jordan in her hazy-beautiful voice (see above) saying, as she does in the opening to “Black Women haven’t ‘Got It All,” “All I have time to say to Robert Staples is this: Are you serious?” (39). Instead, I’m going to present a few provisional fragments as guideposts and entryways into this historical text that embodies such a fascinating affective register. I am totally serious.