{"id":119,"date":"2015-09-30T17:45:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T17:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=119"},"modified":"2015-10-03T22:41:33","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T22:41:33","slug":"shange-engaging-black-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=119","title":{"rendered":"Engaging Black Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

the suspect is black & in his early 20\u2019s<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>is a poem that causes readers to engage with black masculinity in America by invoking Bigger Thomas, a 20 year old man who accidentally kills a white woman in Richard Wright\u2019s <\/span>Native Son<\/span><\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before engaging <\/span>Native Son<\/em>, <\/span>Shange provides context (in brackets) of real life examples of criminalized black men spoken about in the news in 1974 at the time she was writing the poem. She refers to the criminal activities of a left-wing revolutionary group, the <\/span>Symbionese Liberation Army<\/span> (S.L.A.). The S.L.A. kidnapped a white woman named Patricia Hearst and robbed a bank. In addition Shange mentions, \u201cZebra\u201d killings which were 16 racially motivated murders and 8 attempts by a group of Black Muslim men. In providing this information in the brackets, Shange sets up a clear parallel to the criminalization of Bigger Thomas in <\/span>Native Son<\/span>, while simultaneously showing that the content in the brackets could be replaced with content about the criminalization of black men at any point in history. A very poignant example would be the way black men are criminalized in Public Safety security alerts at Barnard about suspects who are most often black and in their early 20s or younger.<\/span><\/p>\n

Outside of the brackets, Shange uses Bigger Thomas in the rest of her poem as a representative for all black men. Notably, black women are suspected to be implicated by mere association to black men, as seen with Bessie Smith and the mention of “(women included)” in brackets within the brackets in the first stanza. \u00a0Shange reveals her complex relationship with black men in this poem by revealing how she went from hating Bigger to sympathizing with him. She writes, \u201ci always hated bigger thomas\u2026 till i remembered who mary dalton waz.\u201d Mary Dalton is a stand in for white supremacy which leads black men to commit crimes as their only means of survival. It is noteworthy that there are few slashes in the poem, rather there are gaping white spaces where Mary Dalton is implicated causing us to ponder and dwell on the whiteness of the page between words.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though Shange reflects on black masculinity and how it has been affected by white supremacy, Shange shows her concern for black women\u2019s agency and well-being through her identification with Bessie. She makes it plain that \u201cmary dalton cost bessie.\u201d She acknowledges that \u201cbigger treated bessie soooo bad.\u201d But at the same time, she invites black women into having a more complex understanding of black masculinity. Shange realizes that her simplistic understanding of Bigger as either \u201ca man\u201d or \u201ca thug,\u201d excludes the role of white supremacy in the expression of their masculinity. \u00a0By referring to Mary Dalton as the reason behind Bigger\u2019s crimes, she also shows how black men\u2019s struggles in racist society may cause them to be abusive in romantic relationships, as Bigger was with Bessie. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, Shange deals with the experience of black people in America through this poem. Mary Dalton, “her drunken ashes \/ her wanton charred \/ bones sent thousands of \/ bullets looking for a blk boy \/ any one nigger wd do.\u201d Black people are not seen as individuals, but one suspect mass: \u201cthe suspect is our sons \/ again prey to whims & caprices of \/ grande dame white ladies.\u201d And Mary Dalton is resurrected every time a black person is criminalized. (slashed in quotes were added by me)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Bigger Thomas holding lifeless Mary Dalton: Bigger’s burden to carry.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Mary Dalton,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“you are ashes<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

you are dry bones<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

you are the bringin of death to our sons<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

the suspect is black & always in his early 20\u2019s”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the suspect is black & in his early 20\u2019s\u00a0is a poem that causes readers to engage with black masculinity in America by invoking Bigger Thomas, a 20 year old man who accidentally kills a white woman in Richard Wright\u2019s Native Son. Before engaging Native Son, Shange provides context (in brackets) of real life examples of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29,30,20,28,31],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","tag-black-masculinity","tag-blogpost-2","tag-nappy-edges","tag-richard-wright","tag-white-supremacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}