"In Search of Our Mother's Garden" - Alice Walker "For these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not Saints, but Artists, driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality - which is the basis of Art - that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane. Throwing away this spirituality was their pathetic attempt to lighten the soul to a weight their work-worn, sexually abused bodies could bear" (402).
"Some Thoughts on Jessica Jones" - Feminist Frequency "On the other hand, the show shuns the opportunity to depict something akin to a genuine attempt at recovery in favor of portraying Jones as being above such things. A support group is formed for people who have been violated by the villain, Kilgrave, but Jessica never participates. In reality, many people who have been traumatized carry around a tremendous amount of shame and do avoid opportunities for help and support. However, having the show’s hero be the one character who doesn’t ask for help suggests that it’s stronger and braver not to seek help, when it’s actually just the opposite."
Clearly the past is impossible to forget. The cruelties of the past shape the future whether they be directed at a single individual or a group of people; whether they influence one person or an entire culture, or an entire system. Look at how far the justice system has come since the time of slavery - it really hasn't. Look at how much the influence of patriarchal suppression has died out since the Women's Rights Movement - it, too, really hasn't. Only in law, and only kind of, in both these instances.
How do you influence the thoughts and feelings of your oppressor? It cannot be done kindly. As Assata Shakur once said: "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them." Is radical revolution the only option? What consequences could it have for social movements, as well as benefits?
Good questions. When addressing systemic inequality, I'm not sure it's even possible to take down the whole system as ideology permeates every aspect of life, from the legal system, to pop culture. I think that incremental change, strong voices, and advocacy are how we effect social change...but many others disagree!
"Writing is dangerous because we are afraid of what the writing reveals: the fears, the angers, the strengths of a woman under triple or quadruple oppression. Yet in that very act lies out survival because a woman who writes has power. And a woman with power is feared" (p. 33). "Speaking in Tongues" by Gloria Anzaldua
"At the end of the day as I look at myself in that same mirror I began my morning, I remind myself, 'This is my life and this is my truth.' ... At the close of every night, I know I've lived without regret, loved deeply, and given endless gratitude for every beautiful breath -- all because of the artistry of being honest." "The Artistry of Being Honest" by Ashley Ballou-Bonnema
When trying to write, what value does honesty have? What value does writing the truth have for people in minority groups? For those in the majority? If one writes with honesty, what kind of things are exposed or hidden? Is being honest important when trying to write something fictional? How does honesty help/hinder the author attempting to break out of the "old, white man" style of writing?
Good questions. I might complicate matters a bit and ask who is allowed to be "honest" about their daily struggles, and who is accused of "complaining" if they're honest. In other words, how does intersectionality affect who's allowed to be honest and who's not?
"And I remember people coming to my mother's yard to be given cuttings from her flowers; I hear again the praise showered on her because whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden. A garden so brilliant with colors, so original in its design, so magnificent with life and creativity, that to this day people drive by our house in Georgia-perfect strangers and imperfect strangers-and ask to stand or walk among my mother's art." - Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mother's Garden" (408)
"At my job, we have a piece of software that tells us which thumbnail will get the best response for our videos. 9/10 this system will pick a thumb with a white person on it, over a thumb with a black person. The piece of software itself isn't racist, it's just recording the views of the world around us. I made it a small goal of mine to start beating that computer software with my face on the thumbnail of my videos. In time, I did. I was making so many videos that people enjoyed, that my face—a black face—became more popular than the default norm. That was huge for me, and important for all black women I work with." - Quinta Brunson in her interview for Nylon Magazine https://www.nylon.com/articles/quinta-brunson-interview
Is there something that you've worked hard on (writing, photography, acting in a play, a sport, ANYTHING) that has had complete strangers congratulating you on that work? Has that affected how you practice whatever it is that you got congratulated on? Does it make you work harder and strive for more recognition, or is it something that you just do for fun that got recognized?
Interesting connections, Mari. When I read them together, I thought of how they both show a non-standard form of "writing the world" with art. Gardens and thumbnails may seem vastly different, but they both allow wider audiences, regardless of race, to see these women's ingenuity.
Walker- "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" "And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read." -Walker, page 7
Desta- "A brief history of female authors with male pen names" "From the jump, burgeoning authors have to keep these statistics in mind. When up-and-coming author J.K. Rowling was getting ready to publish her first Harry Potter book, her publishers asked her to change her name from Joanne to something with initials, in order to attract boy readers." -Desta, page 1
Guiding Questions: The quotes I chose demonstrate a history of women's authors publishing not as their true selves, or not engaging in their artist talents at all. How do we overcome this? If more women were to publish as themselves, do you think it would have a positive or negative impact on the problem? Would it make things harder or easier for women's writers?
When I read your two excerpts together, I couldn't help but noticing how the idea of "legacy" connects them. That we need that "spark" handed down to us. And the fact that JK had to change her name to attract "boy readers" reminds me of Watkins "On Pandering." Imagine if male writers were asked to write under "female" pseudonyms to attract girl readers? There's an assumption that girls are open to reading anything, but that boys have to be enticed to read stories (even if they have a male protagonist, like Harry). When you are part of a dominant group, you choose who you want to read, whereas it's assumed the rest of us will read everything.
“To Toomer, they lay vacant and fallow as autumn fields…” (402) VS “Because of her creativity with her flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through the screen of blooms…For her, so hindered and intruded on in so many ways, being an artist has still been a daily part of her life” (408). Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”
“But what we want/…is to see our words engraved/on the people’s faces,/feel our words catalyze emotions in their lives…/We don’t want to be stars, but parts of constellations” (25). Anzaldua’s “The New Speakers”
Walker and Anzaldua both use metaphors to conceptualize the literacy practices of women of color. Both metaphors suggest, to me, that we need to challenge traditional definitions of “literacy” that link it solely to the written word and the brave author working in isolation (the star). Once we notice the “constellation” of every day practices that surround the written word, we (and authors like Toomey) will also notice the ways that women of color have long used language and art to “Order the Universe” (Walker 408). How might such an expanded definition of literacy be incorporated into writing curricula at schools so that we better “notice” the legacies of our mothers?
There's always a way for something to get done. In this instances expanding the literacy for writing curricula at school could be done to increase the diversity by broadcasting more work from women of color. Women of color has played a vital role in literacy and it wouldn't be fair to have them left out. By adding the work that women of color has done allows for other writers in school to not be afraid to write like a person of color or to even touch on taboo topics. Once we take the chance to do something drastically different such as incorporating women of colors into our studies/ work than we'll be more better at paying homage and to not be stuck in the same mindset that a lot of people are already in...the typical old white man mindset.
“How was the creativity of the black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist. Consider, if you can bear to imagine it, what might have been the result if singing, too, had been forbidden by law. Listen to the voices of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, and Aretha Franklin, among others, and imagine those voices muzzled for life. Then you may begin to comprehend the lives of our "crazy," "Sainted" mothers and grandmothers. The agony of the lives of women who might have been Poets, Novelists, Essayists, and Short-Story Writers (over a period of centuries), who died with their real gifts stifled within them. (403).” From Walker In Search of Our Mother’s Garden
“Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just some thing she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be” From Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
I often the wonder about the question that Walker poses in her quote: how was the creativity of black women, and black men, been so intact and so powerful over the years when they were faced with such great oppression that they couldn’t even read or write or paint?
Excellent connections and questions, Tramel. I'm excited that you're looking ahead a Hurston to make the connections that you do, too. What is particularly poignant to me about the Janie passage is that her artistry is internal rather than external (at least in this section), but it's there despite oppression. To answer your question, perhaps creativity--and the urge to order and embellish our broken worlds--is innate? We may not be able to see it with our current interpretive lenses, but it's always there?
“Virginia Woolf, in her book A Room of Ones Own, wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction she must have two things, certainly: a room of her own (With key and lock) and enough money to support herself. What then are we to make of Phillis Wheatley, a slave, who owned not even herself? This sickly, frail black girl who required a servant of her own at times-her health was so precarious-and who, had she been white, would have been easily considered the intellectual superior of all the women most of the men in the society of her day.” (404)
“Beyoncé in ‘Formation’: Entertainer, Activist, Both?”
“This woman’s blackness was never in doubt, but I wonder when you become this wealthy and this famous, and when that’s not how you were raised — friends, say, with the former Paltrow-Martins — whether you start to wonder or fear disconnection from what is, in Beyoncé’s case, your less affluent, Southern heritage.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/arts/music/beyonce-formation-super-bowl-video.html?_r=0
“White Feminism” is a term to describe how some feminists today exclude non-white/underprivileged/disabled/trans women, why do you think that so many feminists even today don’t take these women into consideration? Is it conscious, or not? Women of color specifically have been more excluded in the feminist movement, what can society do to change that? How can we be more aware of our privilege when it comes to our everyday lives, writing, the media, etc?
I am sooo glad someone posted on Beyonce's Formation. What a powerful reclaiming of "blackness" by a woman some might consider a sell-out because of her wide audiences. And the link to Wheately is interesting to me in that she too has been considered a "sell-out" and less than black for writing about freedom as having golden hair, etc.
"I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing." -Gloria Anzaldua.
"Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version." -Carolyn See
Anzaldua goes into great detail about the struggles of balancing a life and the need to write as well as drawing from her own struggles of distractions. What are some of the struggles that come up in your every day lives that come in conflict with our writing time? What are your distractions? Most importantly, how do you banish it all away and get to work?
Good questions. To expand, I wonder whether women who are working under multiple oppressions find it even more difficult to find their voices and revise the world? In other words, do white women experience coming to voice differently than women of color/gay women, etc.?
“What validates us as human beings validates us as writers. What matters to us is the relationships that are important to us whether with our self or with others. We must use what is important to us to get to the writing.”
“I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.” – Sunili Govinnage
“Reading more diverse literature has the power to convey the universality of human experience and show that we really have more in common with one another than expected.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/24/i-only-read-books-by-minority-authors-for-a-year-it-showed-me-just-how-white-our-reading-world-is/
Guiding Question:
The human experience is shared by everyone. Yet, in the literary industry, countless voices are marginalized. Society, and as a result the best seller lists, are dominated by the white community. Books written by minority authors are often insanely difficult to access, even when we are actively searching for them. If this is the case, how can we expose ourselves to more diverse literature? How might we encourage others to diversify their reading experiences and step away from the white bestsellers?
"And yet, it is to my mother-and all our mothers who were not famous-that I went in search of the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day." -Alice Walker
"Black women get paid less than everybody in Hollywood. Everybody's talking about Jennifer Lawrence. Talk to Gabrielle Union. If you want to hear stories, talk to Nia Long. Talk to Kerry Washington. They would love to get to Jennifer Lawrence's place, or just be treated with the same amount of respect." -Chris Rock
Even in 2016, black female artists, (this past month particularly actresses) have been struggling to make their voices heard. Hollywood is racist, I think we can all agree, and has been for a long time. How can we, as feminists (and many of us women) support a more diverse, female- and diversity-heavy entertainment industry? Will the rest of the world follow? How does this tie in to the discussions we've been having about female representation in fiction?
“In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” – Alice Walker
“For these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not Saints, but Artists; driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality-which is the basis of Art-that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane. Throwing away this spirituality was their pathetic attempt to lighten the soul to a weight their work-worn, sexually abused bodies could bear.” 402
“When we have pleaded for understanding, our character has been distorted; when we have asked for Simple caring, we have been handed empty inspirational appellations, then stuck in the farthest comer. When we have asked for love, we have been given children. In short, even our plainer gifts, our labors of fidelity and love, have been knocked down our throats. To be an artist and a black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it and yet, artists we will be.” 405
“The New Speakers”
“That suffering is a way of life, / that suffering is a virtue / that suffering is the price we pay / for seeing the future.”
“Speaking in Tongues” – Gloria Anzaldúa
"’Man, like all the other animals, fears and is repelled by that which he does not understand, and mere difference is apt to connote something malign.’ – Alice Walker"
“Vaginal Knitting I The Feed” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6RZZf6HMzo
Casey Jenkins spent 28 days putting yarn into her vagina and using that yard to knit a scarf, in order to remove the stigma associated with the vulva by mixing it with something seen as warm and soft.
"I have created a performance piece that I believe is beautiful and valid and I know that this belief can withstand all the negativity in the world."
“Casey Jenkins identifies herself as a former ‘craftivist’—a term she defines as ‘using traditional craft techniques for a political or social activism purpose.’ She and her colleagues in the Craft Cartel acted as a sort of ‘Pussy Riot’ in their native Australia, combating misogyny and closed government. . . . What emerges is not only an active sensory performance—‘It's sort of slightly uncomfortable sometimes, arousing sometimes’—but a piece of cloth that literally records a female life in all its natural states: ‘The performance wouldn't be a performance if I were going to cut out my menstrual cycle from it.’ . . . perhaps its power lies in the fact that the same feminist themes and visuals that shocked us in the '60s and '70s still shock us today. ‘I hope that people question the fears and the negative associations they have with the vulva’”
“'Vaginal Knitting' Is Here To Make Everyone Afraid Of Performance Art Once Again (NSFW)”
“Unsurprisingly, the idea of vaginal performance has left more than a few people with their mouths agape. Jenkins has described the piece as (let out sarcastic gasp here) "arousing" and promises to work non-stop during the days she's knitting, come hell or high water... or menstruation. Cue predictable, cringe-worthy responses.”
Guiding questions: Art has been used to make a statement for years, whether it be about utilized to show the expression of new ideas or reflect the picture of pain and oppression to the public. Sometimes art is met with bewilderment and promise to change, but other times it is met with displeasure or disgust. Do you think that art is a harmless protest and declaration of ideas? Do you think some is unnecessary because either it will not be seen or it will give off the wrong impression? Do you think Casey Jenkins accomplished what she set out to do?
"Forget the room of one's own--write in the kitchen, lock yourself in the bathroom. Write on the bus or the welfare line, on the job or during meals, between sleeping or waking. I write while sitting on the john. No long stretches at the typewriter unless you're wealthy or have a patron --- you may not even own a typewriter. While you wash the floor or clothes listen to the words chanting in your body. When you're depressed, angry, hurt, when compassion and love possess you. When you cannot help but write"(31-32). "Speaking in Tongues" by Gloria Anzaldua
“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.” Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Anzaldua and Adichie write with such honesty. How do these examples further contrast Virginia Woolf's "Room of One's Own" or "Sponsored by my Husband." Not all writers are privileged or lead perfect, leisurely lives. How do we make sure their stories are told? How do we give them a platform and celebrate their work?
"It is not easy writing this letter. It began as a poem, a long poem. I tried to turn it into an essay but the result was wooden, cold. I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing." (Anzaldua, Speaking in Tongues)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2.e Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
Common Core State Standards for 11 & 12th grade writing do not include standards specifically aimed at creative or personal writing, which undermines the importance of these kinds of texts. CCSS also emphasizes a formal tone and strict adherence to the language of the discipline, which indirectly teaches students that there is a "correct" way to write, and that anything written differently is illegitimate.
Do you think the way we are taught to write in high school affects the way we look at texts and compose texts of our own, despite learning other modes of writing in college? Do you ever find that your writing comes off as very formal, or do you ever find that you have difficulty breaking away from the "standard essay" format? Are there benefits to the way we're taught to write in high school, or do you find it to be more harmful? Is there a way to "unlearn" this style of writing? How might we overcome being locked into this format? How is it harmful to students? To women? To people who grew up with different language practices?
"I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing."
The quote above makes a lot of sense in terms of what is happening now with several high profile actors and actresses planning to boycott the award show over the amount of diversity in the awards. It's almost as if the racist people that are behind the Oscars award shows is brainwashing Hollywood to show of support to white actors and actresses. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/18/entertainment/oscars-boycott-spike-lee-jada-pinkett-smith-feat/
Guiding Question: How can people of color and women included as well make a difference in making the Oscars more of a diverse community? By boycotting the event what exactly would these actors/actresses get out of it?
http://labs.time.com/story/oscars-diversity/ white vs non-white nominees for the Academy Awards. There's also an option to see the winners for each year's category
“My dear hermanas, the dangers we face as women writers of color are not the same as those of white women, though we have many in common. We don't have as much to lose-we never had any privileges. I wanted to call the dangers "obstacles," but that would be a kind of lying. We can't transcend the dangers, can't rise above them. We must go through them and hope we won't have to repeat the performance.” pg. 2 “Why do they fight us? Because they think we are dangerous beasts? Why are we dangerous beasts? Because we shake and often break the whites' comfortable stereotypic images they have of us.” pg. 4 Gloria Anzaldua, “Speaking in Tongues
“As I grew up I stopped comparing myself as much to Hollywood actors and tried to train myself out of seeing white as the default for fictional characters. Call it maturation, call it learning to love myself, call it education; whatever it was, I started looking at my media and my stories through a more critical lens — and as someone learning to feel more comfortable speaking up when not enough of those stories are representing me. And, somewhat miraculously, so did the internet. “Racebent” characters have long been making appearances on sites like Tumblr, but they’ve been picking up heat recently. One of the most popular and frequent, at least on my dash? Hermione Granger as a woman of color, most often black…. Hermione’s story was always one involving a young girl living in a world aggressive towards her for her very existence.” “What A ‘Racebent’ Hermione Granger Really Represents” Alanna Bennett http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannabennett/what-a-racebent-hermione-granger-really-represen-d2yp#.rlL4lro9x
How does “race-bending” break the stereotype of the Third World women that Anzaldua talked about? Why are characters assumed white when no race is stated and what does this say about the mindset of the contemporary reader? How can we overcome the obstacle of the assumed white protagonist? Is this something we can only do descriptively, by specifically stating the race of characters, or socially/institutionally?
“Writing is dangerous because we are afraid of what the writing reveals: the fears, the angers, the strengths of a woman under a triple or quadruple oppression. Yet in that very act lies our survival because a woman who writes has power. And a woman with power is feared.” -Anzaldua “Speaking in Tongues (33)
“By playing with status and gender, the researchers were able to show that status alone isn't enough to make men feel threatened and assert themselves -- it's gender plus status that jeopardizes their manhood and causes them to be more pushy with women in the workplace. Clearly, this is problematic for the many talented, determined women trying to break through the glass ceiling -- or simply earn a living.” -Rebecca Adams “Men See Powerful Women As Threats To Their Masculinity, Says Study” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/men-see-powerful-women-as-threats-to-their-masculinity-says-study_us_55ba33fae4b0b8499b1871a2?utm_hp_ref=powerful-women
Discussion Question: Why is the idea of women having more power than men such an issue in society? What is it that makes men so nervous or uncomfortable when having to associate or work with a woman who is very powerful and ambitious?
"To be an artist and a black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it: and yet, artists we will be." (405)
"Black entertainers will abound at the 88th Academy Awards in February. Comedian and actor Chris Rock will host alongside presenters and performers including Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Hart, The Weeknd and Pharrell Williams. But with the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominations on Jan. 14, media erupted with indignation. For the second year in a row, no actors or actresses of color were nominated for awards, sparking the viral hashtag #OscarsSoWhite." (Entire article at: http://oberlinreview.org/9536/opinions/black-representation-in-the-arts-crucial-to-dismantling-racism/#sthash.vo6dYz8y.dpuf)
With the Oscars, and other awards shows, coming up, there is an increase in the focus that race plays in the recognition of accomplishments not only in Hollywood, but also in general society. At the same time, there is almost always a focus on schools reducing the amount of arts classes that are offered to students, especially in less affluent schools that tend to have a higher percentage of minority students. Would a reduction of the amount of classes lead to even less representation of minorities in the media/Hollywood? What can be done to help minority students, actors, artists and the like get more recognition from the mainstream media?
Walker- In Search of Our Mother's Garden "They stumbled blindly through their lives: creatures so abused and mutilated in body, so dimmed and confused by pain, that they considered themselves unworthy of even hope." (pg 400)
Anzaldúa - Speaking in Tongues "Because white eyes do not want to know us, they do not bother to learn our language, the language which reflects us, our culture, our spirit. The schools we attended or didn't attend did not give us the skills for writing nor the confidence that we were correct in using our class and ethnic languages." (pg 27)
"Who gave us permission to perform the act of writing? Why does writ-ing seem so unnatural for me?" (pg 27)
Allison Joseph- On Being Told I Don't Speak like a Black Person "...And I didn’t sound/ like a Black American, /college acquaintances observed,/ sure they knew what a black person/was supposed to sound like./ Was I supposed to sound lazy, /dropping syllables here, there, /not finishing words but/ slurring the final letter so that /each sentence joined the next, /sliding past the listener? / Were certain words off limits,/ too erudite, too scholarly /for someone with a natural tan? /I asked what they meant, /and they stuttered, blushed, /said /you know, Black English, /applying what they’d learned /from that semester’s text."
Guiding Questions: (Regarding Walker) Where did this tendency to refer to women as 'creatures' come from? Has this contributed to the fact that women are seen as inferior to men? Or is it due to our supposed inferiority that we have been referred to as such?
"Speaking in Tongues"-Gloria Anzaldua "We can't transcend the dangers, can't rise above them. We must go through them and hope we won't have to repeat the performance." -26
"In search of our mothers gardens" Walker
"How dare we reveal the human flesh underneath and bleed red blood like the white folks." 27
"We have been handed the burdens that everyone else- everyone else refused to carry"- 405
"Still I Rise"-Maya Angelou https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Guiding Questions: Through out both these essays and Angelou's poem we see black women faced with hopeless adversity and purposefully belittled in an attempt to keep them in their place. What is it about women of colour that threatens people? How is it that a sickly Phillis Wheatley present a threat to anyone? Why are we (society) so insistent upon othering, and what do we gain from this?
“Speaking in Tongues” by Anzaldúa & “In Search of My Mother’s Garden” by Alice Walker 2-8-16 - Quote from the text: “Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don’t let the pen banish you from yourself. Don’t let the ink coagulate in your pens. Don’t let the censor snuff out the spark, nor the gags muffle your voice.” (Anzaldúa 34) “Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage.” –Naomi Littlebear (Anzaldúa 30) - Contemporary Text Connection: Song : “TONGUES” – Joywave ft. KOPPS “Sometimes, I feel, like they don't understand me. I hear, their mouths, making foreign sounds. Sometimes, I think, they're all just speaking tongues.”
PHILOMELE from The Love of The Nightingale by Timberlake Wertembaker **Play based on the Greek myth of Philomela. (Context: PHILOMELE has been raped by TEREUS, her brother-in-law, and is now confronting him. After this scene, she threatens to talk – to come forward about her rape, and he cuts out her tongue.) Scene 15 PHILOMELE: I was the cause, wasn’t I? Was I? I said something. What did I do? Pause Something in my walk? If I had sung a different song? My hair up, my hair down? It was the beach. I ought not to have been there. I ought not to have been anywhere. I ought not to have been…. at all…. then there would no cause. Is that it? Answer. . . . My body bleeding, my spirit ripped open, and I am the cause? No, this cannot be right, why would I cause my own pain? That isn’t reasonable. What was it then, tell me, Tereus, if I was not the cause?
- Guiding Question: Our society is bent to make us believe that we can’t do things that men can do, and in recent years at least, I feel like we – as girls & women – have been taught to prove that assumption wrong more and more frequently. Do you agree? But are we made to think it is our fault if we can’t? Philomele thought it was her fault at first. Do you think this is the same for third world “mujeres de color”? Anzaldúa originally published this letter in 1981. Do you think society has improved? Why? Can you even say if you are not ‘una mujer de color’?
"My dear Hermanas, the dangers we face as women writers of color are not the same as those of white women, though we have many in common. We don't have much to loose- we never had any privileges" Anzaldua's "The New Speakers" and Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers.
http://lithub.com/10-overlooked-novels-by-women-of-color-in-2015/ Before I read this essay I didn't ever put into thoughts that women of color had a harder time writing or being seen in the writing world.
This quote struck a cord with me. I am half Brazilian and Sicilian. My father being born and raised in Brazil and my mother being born Sicilian and half Irish. Brazil is in south America, Sicily is an island off of the cost of Italy. Both groups of people are predominately very dark in skin tone and hair/ eye color. Does this make me a person of color even though I was “raised” white. Because I was “raised” white does that mean I have no claim to be a person of color? This quote struck something deep with in myself from my core. If I am a person of color then I would be in this group of women whom have a harder time becoming a published writer then a “White” women because I am not white? I don't have much to lose because of being a person of color and there for I have no privileges. I have never thought of myself in this way but it makes me want to prove to myself and others that I do in fact have every right just like “white” Women.
"In Search of Our Mother's Garden" - Alice Walker
ReplyDelete"For these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not Saints, but Artists, driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality - which is the basis of Art - that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane. Throwing away this spirituality was their pathetic attempt to lighten the soul to a weight their work-worn, sexually abused bodies could bear" (402).
"Some Thoughts on Jessica Jones" - Feminist Frequency
"On the other hand, the show shuns the opportunity to depict something akin to a genuine attempt at recovery in favor of portraying Jones as being above such things. A support group is formed for people who have been violated by the villain, Kilgrave, but Jessica never participates. In reality, many people who have been traumatized carry around a tremendous amount of shame and do avoid opportunities for help and support. However, having the show’s hero be the one character who doesn’t ask for help suggests that it’s stronger and braver not to seek help, when it’s actually just the opposite."
Clearly the past is impossible to forget. The cruelties of the past shape the future whether they be directed at a single individual or a group of people; whether they influence one person or an entire culture, or an entire system. Look at how far the justice system has come since the time of slavery - it really hasn't. Look at how much the influence of patriarchal suppression has died out since the Women's Rights Movement - it, too, really hasn't. Only in law, and only kind of, in both these instances.
How do you influence the thoughts and feelings of your oppressor? It cannot be done kindly. As Assata Shakur once said: "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them." Is radical revolution the only option? What consequences could it have for social movements, as well as benefits?
Good questions. When addressing systemic inequality, I'm not sure it's even possible to take down the whole system as ideology permeates every aspect of life, from the legal system, to pop culture. I think that incremental change, strong voices, and advocacy are how we effect social change...but many others disagree!
Delete"Writing is dangerous because we are afraid of what the writing reveals: the fears, the angers, the strengths of a woman under triple or quadruple oppression. Yet in that very act lies out survival because a woman who writes has power. And a woman with power is feared" (p. 33).
ReplyDelete"Speaking in Tongues" by Gloria Anzaldua
"At the end of the day as I look at myself in that same mirror I began my morning, I remind myself, 'This is my life and this is my truth.' ... At the close of every night, I know I've lived without regret, loved deeply, and given endless gratitude for every beautiful breath -- all because of the artistry of being honest."
"The Artistry of Being Honest" by Ashley Ballou-Bonnema
When trying to write, what value does honesty have? What value does writing the truth have for people in minority groups? For those in the majority? If one writes with honesty, what kind of things are exposed or hidden? Is being honest important when trying to write something fictional? How does honesty help/hinder the author attempting to break out of the "old, white man" style of writing?
Good questions. I might complicate matters a bit and ask who is allowed to be "honest" about their daily struggles, and who is accused of "complaining" if they're honest. In other words, how does intersectionality affect who's allowed to be honest and who's not?
Delete"And I remember people coming to my mother's yard to be given cuttings from her flowers; I hear again the praise showered on her because whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden. A garden so brilliant with colors, so original in its design, so magnificent with life and creativity, that to this day people drive by our house in Georgia-perfect strangers and imperfect strangers-and ask to stand or walk among my mother's art." - Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mother's Garden" (408)
ReplyDelete"At my job, we have a piece of software that tells us which thumbnail will get the best response for our videos. 9/10 this system will pick a thumb with a white person on it, over a thumb with a black person. The piece of software itself isn't racist, it's just recording the views of the world around us. I made it a small goal of mine to start beating that computer software with my face on the thumbnail of my videos. In time, I did. I was making so many videos that people enjoyed, that my face—a black face—became more popular than the default norm. That was huge for me, and important for all black women I work with." - Quinta Brunson in her interview for Nylon Magazine
https://www.nylon.com/articles/quinta-brunson-interview
Is there something that you've worked hard on (writing, photography, acting in a play, a sport, ANYTHING) that has had complete strangers congratulating you on that work? Has that affected how you practice whatever it is that you got congratulated on? Does it make you work harder and strive for more recognition, or is it something that you just do for fun that got recognized?
Interesting connections, Mari. When I read them together, I thought of how they both show a non-standard form of "writing the world" with art. Gardens and thumbnails may seem vastly different, but they both allow wider audiences, regardless of race, to see these women's ingenuity.
DeleteWalker- "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens"
ReplyDelete"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read." -Walker, page 7
Desta- "A brief history of female authors with male pen names"
"From the jump, burgeoning authors have to keep these statistics in mind. When up-and-coming author J.K. Rowling was getting ready to publish her first Harry Potter book, her publishers asked her to change her name from Joanne to something with initials, in order to attract boy readers." -Desta, page 1
Guiding Questions: The quotes I chose demonstrate a history of women's authors publishing not as their true selves, or not engaging in their artist talents at all. How do we overcome this? If more women were to publish as themselves, do you think it would have a positive or negative impact on the problem? Would it make things harder or easier for women's writers?
When I read your two excerpts together, I couldn't help but noticing how the idea of "legacy" connects them. That we need that "spark" handed down to us. And the fact that JK had to change her name to attract "boy readers" reminds me of Watkins "On Pandering." Imagine if male writers were asked to write under "female" pseudonyms to attract girl readers? There's an assumption that girls are open to reading anything, but that boys have to be enticed to read stories (even if they have a male protagonist, like Harry). When you are part of a dominant group, you choose who you want to read, whereas it's assumed the rest of us will read everything.
DeleteOn Expanding What We See as Literacy
ReplyDelete“To Toomer, they lay vacant and fallow as autumn fields…” (402) VS “Because of her creativity with her flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through the screen of blooms…For her, so hindered and intruded on in so many ways, being an artist has still been a daily part of her life” (408). Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”
“But what we want/…is to see our words engraved/on the people’s faces,/feel our words catalyze emotions in their lives…/We don’t want to be stars, but parts of constellations” (25). Anzaldua’s “The New Speakers”
Walker and Anzaldua both use metaphors to conceptualize the literacy practices of women of color. Both metaphors suggest, to me, that we need to challenge traditional definitions of “literacy” that link it solely to the written word and the brave author working in isolation (the star). Once we notice the “constellation” of every day practices that surround the written word, we (and authors like Toomey) will also notice the ways that women of color have long used language and art to “Order the Universe” (Walker 408). How might such an expanded definition of literacy be incorporated into writing curricula at schools so that we better “notice” the legacies of our mothers?
There's always a way for something to get done. In this instances expanding the literacy for writing curricula at school could be done to increase the diversity by broadcasting more work from women of color. Women of color has played a vital role in literacy and it wouldn't be fair to have them left out. By adding the work that women of color has done allows for other writers in school to not be afraid to write like a person of color or to even touch on taboo topics. Once we take the chance to do something drastically different such as incorporating women of colors into our studies/ work than we'll be more better at paying homage and to not be stuck in the same mindset that a lot of people are already in...the typical old white man mindset.
Delete“How was the creativity of the black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist. Consider, if you can bear to imagine it, what might have been the result if singing, too, had been forbidden by law. Listen to the voices of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, and Aretha Franklin, among others, and imagine those voices muzzled for life. Then you may begin to comprehend the lives of our "crazy," "Sainted" mothers and grandmothers. The agony of the lives of women who might have been Poets, Novelists, Essayists, and Short-Story Writers (over a period of centuries), who died with their real gifts stifled within them. (403).” From Walker In Search of Our Mother’s Garden
ReplyDelete“Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just some thing she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be” From Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
I often the wonder about the question that Walker poses in her quote: how was the creativity of black women, and black men, been so intact and so powerful over the years when they were faced with such great oppression that they couldn’t even read or write or paint?
Excellent connections and questions, Tramel. I'm excited that you're looking ahead a Hurston to make the connections that you do, too. What is particularly poignant to me about the Janie passage is that her artistry is internal rather than external (at least in this section), but it's there despite oppression. To answer your question, perhaps creativity--and the urge to order and embellish our broken worlds--is innate? We may not be able to see it with our current interpretive lenses, but it's always there?
DeleteAlice Walker, “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”
ReplyDelete“Virginia Woolf, in her book A Room of Ones Own, wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction she must have two things, certainly: a room of her own (With key and lock) and enough money to support herself. What then are we to make of Phillis Wheatley, a slave, who owned not even herself? This sickly, frail black girl who required a servant of her own at times-her health was so precarious-and who, had she been white, would have been easily considered the intellectual superior of all the women most of the men in the society of her day.” (404)
“Beyoncé in ‘Formation’: Entertainer, Activist, Both?”
“This woman’s blackness was never in doubt, but I wonder when you become this wealthy and this famous, and when that’s not how you were raised — friends, say, with the former Paltrow-Martins — whether you start to wonder or fear disconnection from what is, in Beyoncé’s case, your less affluent, Southern heritage.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/arts/music/beyonce-formation-super-bowl-video.html?_r=0
“White Feminism” is a term to describe how some feminists today exclude non-white/underprivileged/disabled/trans women, why do you think that so many feminists even today don’t take these women into consideration? Is it conscious, or not? Women of color specifically have been more excluded in the feminist movement, what can society do to change that? How can we be more aware of our privilege when it comes to our everyday lives, writing, the media, etc?
I am sooo glad someone posted on Beyonce's Formation. What a powerful reclaiming of "blackness" by a woman some might consider a sell-out because of her wide audiences. And the link to Wheately is interesting to me in that she too has been considered a "sell-out" and less than black for writing about freedom as having golden hair, etc.
Delete"I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing." -Gloria Anzaldua.
ReplyDelete"Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version." -Carolyn See
Anzaldua goes into great detail about the struggles of balancing a life and the need to write as well as drawing from her own struggles of distractions. What are some of the struggles that come up in your every day lives that come in conflict with our writing time? What are your distractions? Most importantly, how do you banish it all away and get to work?
Good questions. To expand, I wonder whether women who are working under multiple oppressions find it even more difficult to find their voices and revise the world? In other words, do white women experience coming to voice differently than women of color/gay women, etc.?
Delete“Speaking in Tongues” – Gloria Anzaldua
ReplyDelete“What validates us as human beings validates us as writers. What matters to us is the relationships that are important to us whether with our self or with others. We must use what is important to us to get to the writing.”
“I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.” – Sunili Govinnage
“Reading more diverse literature has the power to convey the universality of human experience and show that we really have more in common with one another than expected.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/24/i-only-read-books-by-minority-authors-for-a-year-it-showed-me-just-how-white-our-reading-world-is/
Guiding Question:
The human experience is shared by everyone. Yet, in the literary industry, countless voices are marginalized. Society, and as a result the best seller lists, are dominated by the white community. Books written by minority authors are often insanely difficult to access, even when we are actively searching for them. If this is the case, how can we expose ourselves to more diverse literature? How might we encourage others to diversify their reading experiences and step away from the white bestsellers?
"And yet, it is to my mother-and all our mothers who were not famous-that I went in search of the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day." -Alice Walker
ReplyDelete"Black women get paid less than everybody in Hollywood. Everybody's talking about Jennifer Lawrence. Talk to Gabrielle Union. If you want to hear stories, talk to Nia Long. Talk to Kerry Washington. They would love to get to Jennifer Lawrence's place, or just be treated with the same amount of respect." -Chris Rock
Even in 2016, black female artists, (this past month particularly actresses) have been struggling to make their voices heard. Hollywood is racist, I think we can all agree, and has been for a long time. How can we, as feminists (and many of us women) support a more diverse, female- and diversity-heavy entertainment industry? Will the rest of the world follow? How does this tie in to the discussions we've been having about female representation in fiction?
“In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” – Alice Walker
ReplyDelete“For these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not Saints, but Artists; driven to a numb and bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality-which is the basis of Art-that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane. Throwing away this spirituality was their pathetic attempt to lighten the soul to a weight their work-worn, sexually abused bodies could bear.” 402
“When we have pleaded for understanding, our character has been distorted; when we have asked for Simple caring, we have been handed empty inspirational appellations, then stuck in the farthest comer. When we have asked for love, we have been given children. In short, even our plainer gifts, our labors of fidelity and love, have been knocked down our throats. To be an artist and a black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it and yet, artists we will be.” 405
“The New Speakers”
“That suffering is a way of life, / that suffering is a virtue / that suffering is the price we pay / for seeing the future.”
“Speaking in Tongues” – Gloria Anzaldúa
"’Man, like all the other animals, fears and is repelled by that which he does not understand, and mere difference is apt to connote something malign.’ – Alice Walker"
“Vaginal Knitting I The Feed” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6RZZf6HMzo
Casey Jenkins spent 28 days putting yarn into her vagina and using that yard to knit a scarf, in order to remove the stigma associated with the vulva by mixing it with something seen as warm and soft.
"I have created a performance piece that I believe is beautiful and valid and I know that this belief can withstand all the negativity in the world."
“Casey Jenkins identifies herself as a former ‘craftivist’—a term she defines as ‘using traditional craft techniques for a political or social activism purpose.’ She and her colleagues in the Craft Cartel acted as a sort of ‘Pussy Riot’ in their native Australia, combating misogyny and closed government. . . . What emerges is not only an active sensory performance—‘It's sort of slightly uncomfortable sometimes, arousing sometimes’—but a piece of cloth that literally records a female life in all its natural states: ‘The performance wouldn't be a performance if I were going to cut out my menstrual cycle from it.’ . . . perhaps its power lies in the fact that the same feminist themes and visuals that shocked us in the '60s and '70s still shock us today. ‘I hope that people question the fears and the negative associations they have with the vulva’”
http://gawker.com/vaginal-knitting-is-the-new-thing-in-activist-perform-1472674648
“'Vaginal Knitting' Is Here To Make Everyone Afraid Of Performance Art Once Again (NSFW)”
“Unsurprisingly, the idea of vaginal performance has left more than a few people with their mouths agape. Jenkins has described the piece as (let out sarcastic gasp here) "arousing" and promises to work non-stop during the days she's knitting, come hell or high water... or menstruation. Cue predictable, cringe-worthy responses.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/vaginal-knitting_n_4386419.html
Guiding questions: Art has been used to make a statement for years, whether it be about utilized to show the expression of new ideas or reflect the picture of pain and oppression to the public. Sometimes art is met with bewilderment and promise to change, but other times it is met with displeasure or disgust. Do you think that art is a harmless protest and declaration of ideas? Do you think some is unnecessary because either it will not be seen or it will give off the wrong impression? Do you think Casey Jenkins accomplished what she set out to do?
"Forget the room of one's own--write in the kitchen, lock yourself in the bathroom. Write on the bus or the welfare line, on the job or during meals, between sleeping or waking. I write while sitting on the john. No long stretches at the typewriter unless you're wealthy or have a patron --- you may not even own a typewriter. While you wash the floor or clothes listen to the words chanting in your body. When you're depressed, angry, hurt, when compassion and love possess you. When you cannot help but write"(31-32). "Speaking in Tongues" by Gloria Anzaldua
ReplyDelete“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.” Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Anzaldua and Adichie write with such honesty. How do these examples further contrast Virginia Woolf's "Room of One's Own" or "Sponsored by my Husband." Not all writers are privileged or lead perfect, leisurely lives. How do we make sure their stories are told? How do we give them a platform and celebrate their work?
"It is not easy writing this letter. It began as a poem, a long poem. I tried to turn it into an essay but the result was wooden, cold. I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing." (Anzaldua, Speaking in Tongues)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/11-12/
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.2.e
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
Common Core State Standards for 11 & 12th grade writing do not include standards specifically aimed at creative or personal writing, which undermines the importance of these kinds of texts. CCSS also emphasizes a formal tone and strict adherence to the language of the discipline, which indirectly teaches students that there is a "correct" way to write, and that anything written differently is illegitimate.
Do you think the way we are taught to write in high school affects the way we look at texts and compose texts of our own, despite learning other modes of writing in college? Do you ever find that your writing comes off as very formal, or do you ever find that you have difficulty breaking away from the "standard essay" format? Are there benefits to the way we're taught to write in high school, or do you find it to be more harmful? Is there a way to "unlearn" this style of writing? How might we overcome being locked into this format? How is it harmful to students? To women? To people who grew up with different language practices?
"I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing."
ReplyDeleteThe quote above makes a lot of sense in terms of what is happening now with several high profile actors and actresses planning to boycott the award show over the amount of diversity in the awards. It's almost as if the racist people that are behind the Oscars award shows is brainwashing Hollywood to show of support to white actors and actresses. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/18/entertainment/oscars-boycott-spike-lee-jada-pinkett-smith-feat/
Guiding Question: How can people of color and women included as well make a difference in making the Oscars more of a diverse community? By boycotting the event what exactly would these actors/actresses get out of it?
http://labs.time.com/story/oscars-diversity/
Deletewhite vs non-white nominees for the Academy Awards. There's also an option to see the winners for each year's category
“My dear hermanas, the dangers we face as women writers of color are not the same as those of white women, though we have many in common. We don't have as much to lose-we never had any privileges. I wanted to call the dangers "obstacles," but that would be a kind of lying. We can't transcend the dangers, can't rise above them. We must go through them and hope we won't have to repeat the performance.” pg. 2
ReplyDelete“Why do they fight us? Because they think we are dangerous beasts? Why are we dangerous beasts? Because we shake and often break the whites' comfortable stereotypic images they have of us.” pg. 4
Gloria Anzaldua, “Speaking in Tongues
“As I grew up I stopped comparing myself as much to Hollywood actors and tried to train myself out of seeing white as the default for fictional characters.
Call it maturation, call it learning to love myself, call it education; whatever it was, I started looking at my media and my stories through a more critical lens — and as someone learning to feel more comfortable speaking up when not enough of those stories are representing me.
And, somewhat miraculously, so did the internet.
“Racebent” characters have long been making appearances on sites like Tumblr, but they’ve been picking up heat recently. One of the most popular and frequent, at least on my dash? Hermione Granger as a woman of color, most often black….
Hermione’s story was always one involving a young girl living in a world aggressive towards her for her very existence.”
“What A ‘Racebent’ Hermione Granger Really Represents” Alanna Bennett http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannabennett/what-a-racebent-hermione-granger-really-represen-d2yp#.rlL4lro9x
How does “race-bending” break the stereotype of the Third World women that Anzaldua talked about? Why are characters assumed white when no race is stated and what does this say about the mindset of the contemporary reader? How can we overcome the obstacle of the assumed white protagonist? Is this something we can only do descriptively, by specifically stating the race of characters, or socially/institutionally?
http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/138932552931/is-there-a-reason-you-dont-often-describe-race-in
Delete“Writing is dangerous because we are afraid of what the writing reveals: the fears, the angers, the strengths of a woman under a triple or quadruple oppression. Yet in that very act lies our survival because a woman who writes has power. And a woman with power is feared.” -Anzaldua “Speaking in Tongues (33)
ReplyDelete“By playing with status and gender, the researchers were able to show that status alone isn't enough to make men feel threatened and assert themselves -- it's gender plus status that jeopardizes their manhood and causes them to be more pushy with women in the workplace. Clearly, this is problematic for the many talented, determined women trying to break through the glass ceiling -- or simply earn a living.” -Rebecca Adams “Men See Powerful Women As Threats To Their Masculinity, Says Study” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/men-see-powerful-women-as-threats-to-their-masculinity-says-study_us_55ba33fae4b0b8499b1871a2?utm_hp_ref=powerful-women
Discussion Question: Why is the idea of women having more power than men such an issue in society? What is it that makes men so nervous or uncomfortable when having to associate or work with a woman who is very powerful and ambitious?
"To be an artist and a black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it: and yet, artists we will be." (405)
ReplyDelete"Black entertainers will abound at the 88th Academy Awards in February. Comedian and actor Chris Rock will host alongside presenters and performers including Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Hart, The Weeknd and Pharrell Williams. But with the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominations on Jan. 14, media erupted with indignation. For the second year in a row, no actors or actresses of color were nominated for awards, sparking the viral hashtag #OscarsSoWhite." (Entire article at: http://oberlinreview.org/9536/opinions/black-representation-in-the-arts-crucial-to-dismantling-racism/#sthash.vo6dYz8y.dpuf)
With the Oscars, and other awards shows, coming up, there is an increase in the focus that race plays in the recognition of accomplishments not only in Hollywood, but also in general society. At the same time, there is almost always a focus on schools reducing the amount of arts classes that are offered to students, especially in less affluent schools that tend to have a higher percentage of minority students. Would a reduction of the amount of classes lead to even less representation of minorities in the media/Hollywood? What can be done to help minority students, actors, artists and the like get more recognition from the mainstream media?
Walker- In Search of Our Mother's Garden
ReplyDelete"They stumbled blindly through their lives: creatures so abused and mutilated in body, so dimmed and confused by pain, that they considered themselves unworthy of even hope." (pg 400)
Anzaldúa - Speaking in Tongues
"Because white eyes do not want to know us, they do not bother to learn our language, the language which reflects us, our culture, our spirit. The
schools we attended or didn't attend did not give us the skills for writing nor the confidence that we were correct in using our class and ethnic languages." (pg 27)
"Who gave us permission to perform the act of writing? Why does writ-ing seem so unnatural for me?" (pg 27)
Allison Joseph- On Being Told I Don't Speak like a Black Person
"...And I didn’t sound/ like a Black American, /college acquaintances observed,/ sure they knew what a black person/was supposed to sound like./ Was I supposed to sound lazy, /dropping syllables here, there, /not finishing words but/ slurring the final letter so that /each sentence joined the next, /sliding past the listener? / Were certain words off limits,/ too erudite, too scholarly /for someone with a natural tan? /I asked what they meant, /and they stuttered, blushed, /said /you know, Black English, /applying what they’d learned /from that semester’s text."
Guiding Questions: (Regarding Walker) Where did this tendency to refer to women as 'creatures' come from? Has this contributed to the fact that women are seen as inferior to men? Or is it due to our supposed inferiority that we have been referred to as such?
"Speaking in Tongues"-Gloria Anzaldua
ReplyDelete"We can't transcend the dangers, can't rise above them. We must go through them and hope we won't have to repeat the performance." -26
"In search of our mothers gardens" Walker
"How dare we reveal the human flesh underneath and bleed red blood like the white folks." 27
"We have been handed the burdens that everyone else- everyone else refused to carry"- 405
"Still I Rise"-Maya Angelou
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Guiding Questions: Through out both these essays and Angelou's poem we see black women faced with hopeless adversity and purposefully belittled in an attempt to keep them in their place. What is it about women of colour that threatens people? How is it that a sickly Phillis Wheatley present a threat to anyone? Why are we (society) so insistent upon othering, and what do we gain from this?
“Speaking in Tongues” by Anzaldúa & “In Search of My Mother’s Garden” by Alice Walker
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- Quote from the text:
“Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don’t let the pen banish you from yourself. Don’t let the ink coagulate in your pens. Don’t let the censor snuff out the spark, nor the gags muffle your voice.” (Anzaldúa 34)
“Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage.” –Naomi Littlebear (Anzaldúa 30)
- Contemporary Text Connection:
Song : “TONGUES” – Joywave ft. KOPPS
“Sometimes, I feel, like they don't understand me.
I hear, their mouths, making foreign sounds.
Sometimes, I think, they're all just speaking tongues.”
PHILOMELE from The Love of The Nightingale by Timberlake Wertembaker
**Play based on the Greek myth of Philomela.
(Context: PHILOMELE has been raped by TEREUS, her brother-in-law, and is now confronting him. After this scene, she threatens to talk – to come forward about her rape, and he cuts out her tongue.)
Scene 15
PHILOMELE: I was the cause, wasn’t I? Was I? I said something. What did I do? Pause Something in my walk? If I had sung a different song? My hair up, my hair down? It was the beach. I ought not to have been there. I ought not to have been anywhere. I ought not to have been…. at all…. then there would no cause. Is that it? Answer. . . . My body bleeding, my spirit ripped open, and I am the cause? No, this cannot be right, why would I cause my own pain? That isn’t reasonable. What was it then, tell me, Tereus, if I was not the cause?
- Guiding Question:
Our society is bent to make us believe that we can’t do things that men can do, and in recent years at least, I feel like we – as girls & women – have been taught to prove that assumption wrong more and more frequently. Do you agree? But are we made to think it is our fault if we can’t? Philomele thought it was her fault at first.
Do you think this is the same for third world “mujeres de color”? Anzaldúa originally published this letter in 1981. Do you think society has improved? Why? Can you even say if you are not ‘una mujer de color’?
"My dear Hermanas, the dangers we face as women writers of color are not the same as those of white women, though we have many in common. We don't have much to loose- we never had any privileges" Anzaldua's "The New Speakers" and Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers.
ReplyDeletehttp://lithub.com/10-overlooked-novels-by-women-of-color-in-2015/
Before I read this essay I didn't ever put into thoughts that women of color had a harder time writing or being seen in the writing world.
This quote struck a cord with me. I am half Brazilian and Sicilian. My father being born and raised in Brazil and my mother being born Sicilian and half Irish. Brazil is in south America, Sicily is an island off of the cost of Italy. Both groups of people are predominately very dark in skin tone and hair/ eye color. Does this make me a person of color even though I was “raised” white. Because I was “raised” white does that mean I have no claim to be a person of color? This quote struck something deep with in myself from my core. If I am a person of color then I would be in this group of women whom have a harder time becoming a published writer then a “White” women because I am not white? I don't have much to lose because of being a person of color and there for I have no privileges. I have never thought of myself in this way but it makes me want to prove to myself and others that I do in fact have every right just like “white” Women.