Summary Of Cheryl Clarke's After Mecca

In Deborah E. McDowell’s essay Black Female Sexuality in Passing she writes about the sexual repression of women seen in Nella Larsen‘s writings during the Harlem Renaissance, where black women had difficulty expressing their sexuality. In her essay, she writes about topics affecting the sexuality of women such as, religion, marriage, and male dominated societies. In Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” there are examples of women who struggle to express their sexuality. The people in society judge women based off their appearance, and society holds back women from expressing themselves due to society wanting them to dress/act a certain way.

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Ed. By Patricia Hill Collins. (New York: Routledge, 2000. ii, 336 pp. Cloth, $128.28, ISBN 0-415-92483-9. Paper, $26.21, 0-415-92484-7.)

In “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”, Alice Walker looks to educate us on the hardships that almost all black women face when trying to express themselves through things such as art. She delves into many sociological and psychological concepts that have affected black women throughout human history. These concepts and ideologies created a realm for mass exclusion, discrimination, and oppression of many African American women, including Alice Walker’s Mother, who Alice utilizes as one of her particular examples. The writing thematically aims to show how these concepts of sexism, racism, and even classism have contributed to black women’s lack of individuality, optimism, and fulfillment for generations. The author does a tremendous job of defending and expanding upon her arguments. She has a credible background, being a black woman that produces the art of literature herself. As well as being raised by one, Walker’s first-hand experience warrants high regard. Therefore, her use of abstract and introspective language is presented clearly and convincingly. Also, her use of evidence and support from sources like Jean Toomer, Virginia Woolf, and Phillis Wheatley, all produce more validity for her stance through poems, quotes, and even experiences. All these individuals have their own accounts pertaining to the oppression of black women and their individuality. Successfully arguing that the artistry plights of black women described in “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” are

Throughout America’s history there have been many struggles with equality amongst the many racial identities that live in this “melting pot.” Acceptance of the many races is a continuous goal in the war on racism in America. Once accepted, many racial identities go under huge scrutiny by the media, society, and their other racial counterparts, etc. Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins is a critical analysis of blacks in America and blacks as a race. The book analyzes this race on various levels, and these levels include, but are not limited to the following: the concept of “new” racism, gender ideology within the race, and the potential for progression of

In John Berger’s chapter, from his book Ways of Seeing, he addresses the objectification of women from the beginning tales of Adam and Eve, all the way through business men of the 20th century, and how this objectification has been explicitly carried through European oil painting. W.E.B. Du Bois, co-founder of the NAACP, talks about a social injustice as well, racism towards African-Americans, in his essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”. Berger uses his knowledge of both art history and objectification to create arguments through examples. In contrast, Du Bois not only refers to past examples of how racism has slowed the process of African-Americans truly becoming Americans, but also situations in his own life that have made him, and all African-Americans feel like a lesser race.

In the essay “What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture?” he says that popular culture is not “the arena where we find out who we really are.” Instead, it is “where we discover and play with the identifications of ourselves, where we are imagined, where we are represented, not only to the audiences out there who do not get the message, but to ourselves for the very first time. “Black” signifies: A community in which experiences, pleasures, memories, and everyday practices of black people occur. Historical perseverance of black people in the diaspora. An aesthetic of distinctive cultural selections out of which popular depictions were made. And of the black counter narratives we have struggled to voice.

Patricia Hill Collins’ piece, “Defining Black Feminist Thought”, sets out to do exactly that: to determine what Black Feminism is, who is a Black Feminist, and who can become a Black Feminist. While not always specifically stated, her argument and analysis arises from the historical context of the role of Black women in feminist and activist spaces, as well as the social reality of differing lived experiences of Black women from traditional white female feminists. Created in 1990, Collins’ work is well situated in the time period of Third Wave Feminist thinking, incorporating strong themes of the need for intersectionality and alternate opinions within feminism, as well as proposing that multiple versions of feminism can be possible,

Rather than conforming to societal ways, female rappers and blues women work within and against dominant sexual and racial narratives in American culture to exposed the stereotypes and explored unfair contradictions. By so doing, they redefined women’s “place”. They forged and memorialized images of tough, resilient, and independent women who were unafraid neither of their own vulnerability nor of defending their right to be respected as autonomous human

In an attempt to define Black Feminism, Collins clarifies that it must “avoid the idealist position that ideas can be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them (Collins 385).” In reality, this forms her basis for why Black Feminism is necessary, and who it serves. Thinking about feminism historically, the concerns of black women were pushed aside in favor of fighting sexism, most notably during the Suffrage movement. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, only prominent feminists were invited to the discussion. What resulted was, and often continues to be, a problem of white women speaking for oppressed people. It’s impossible, Collins argues, to have Black Feminist thought without examining the experiences and positions of African American women. Therefore, Black Feminism must be a movement that “encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live in it (Collins 386).” However, such a definition brings about many questions: who’s experiences are valued, how do black women take their voice back, and how can they center feminist thinking on their own unique standpoint?

The literature depicts the black woman’s struggle through distinct situations and later they arrive at ‘selfhood’ as they find God in themselves. Shanges’ work elaborates how patriarchal discourse made the black girls suffer and how they struggles to get their identity back. Later they end up being “black females who only need to be loved and appreciated” (Hammad 254)

With one pivotal phrase, Toni Morrison creates an essential schematic for understanding the rest of her novel, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. She captures the essence of a central issue within American literature when she coins the phrase, “sycophancy of the white identity” (Morrison 19). Through this meticulous selection of words, she conveys the idea that the white identity is a parasite. It bases itself on, often at the expense of, the Africanist identity. The white identity derives its power, freedom, and autonomy from the imagined African identity’s lack of these concepts. Morrison argues that one’s sense of identity requires an other opposite identity off of which one can feed and ultimately reject.

Collins brings up some significant differences between what it means to be white female and black female. She shows that gender theory is different for diverse races. Previously black women have never been able to divide the circles of their public and isolated lives during slavery era when they have had a history of their confidentiality being violated.

Throughout the semester we have seen how marginalized writers, such as women and people of color, challenge dominant cultural constructions of gender, race, and/or class in colonial America and the U.S. Perhaps these writers challenge our ideas about dominant gender roles or racist assumptions about people that were common at the time.  Choose three writers we have studied who occupy this definition of marginalized status and discuss the narrative strategies these writers use to challenge the status quo.  For example, how do they address their audience and get readers from dominant culture on their side? What stories do they tell about themselves or the experiences of those in their marginalized group, and how and why are these stories effective in challenging dominant culture?

Chimamanda Adichie, feminist Nigerian fiction novel writer, makes this declarative statement in her 2014 TedTalk (presentations made at the technology entertainment design conference), inferring that women are taught from an early age to act according to particular social norms and suppress their sexuality. This concept draws on Black feminist and womanist scholarship that reclaims sexuality, ambition, and success as redeemable qualities, centering the subjectivity of the Black woman (Walker, 1983). Placing the Black woman at the center is a core tenet for Black feminist thought, asserting that race, class, religion and sexual orientation all operate in constellation with one another. Growing up, I can recall how difficult it was to find the voices of Black women, the imagery, and representations of myself within literature, and those examples that I did find were usually negative or stereotypical in nature. In turn, such negative stereotypes have the

“Names as Symbols in Black Poetry” is an article journal written by John T. Shawcross that gives an in-depth analysis on many pieces of literary works, in particular, a stance on black literature. “Poetry written by Blacks is not different from poetry written by non- Blacks. An individual author will reflect his individual milieu, and if he is a Black, the poetry may encompass a black experience in black language with black concerns” (Shawcross 2). Similar to this article, “The Image of Black Harlem in Literature”, is written by James L. de Jongh that poses a question about the history of the Harlem Renaissance and its effect on the culture of black lives during this time. This article examines the utilization of parody in the fictional works of the Harlem Renaissance with reference to basic and scholarly leveled discussion about the esteem and capacity of African American workmanship.