LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, Fall 2004
Sample Student Midterm

Nicole Jackson

10/07/2004

Narratives as Silent Wars: Victimization, the Negotiation of Identity, and Agency in African American Literature

From the littlest to the elders/ we shined our shoes and brushed our hair
and got good and ready for/ "equality as a fact." But
three decades later, and come to find out/ we never got invited to the party
we never got included in "the people”/ —June Jordan

While Americans generally acknowledge the horrid social realities that many African Americans face (poverty, teenage pregnancy, low standardized test scores, broken homes, and so forth), they tend to ignore those ways in which these social ills are connected to slavery.   Because slavery was an inhumane economic institution that literally dehumanized and reduced African Americans to mere pieces of property, this institution commoditized and (in regards to female slaves) sexualized “blackness.”  Thus, blackness became a sustainable but inhuman economy.  Though it does not take a rocket scientist to deduce the contradictions contained within the schism of “human” as “commodity,” the average Jane/Joe (who has not contemplated such issues within a higher taxonomy) cannot articulate the underlying power relationship that slavery mandated.  As course objective 1—“To define the “minority concept" as a power relationship modeled by some ethnic groups’ historical relation to the dominant American culture”—explains, white-black power paradigms were institutionalized during slavery.  And, they are still institutionalized to the socioeconomic benefit of white Americans who were undoubtedly defined as 100% human beings in the Declaration of Independence of the United States Constitution: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  While whiteness was defined as human; blackness was discussed as property without being agreed upon as human. 

In the 21^st century, Americans are still quibbling with this invisible yet invincible power structure.  Since art often imitates life, African American writers often compose narratives that critique or reinforce these power paradigms.  In fact, in her critical composition Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison states, “Writers transform aspects of their social grounding into aspects of language, and the ways they tell other stories, and…fight secret wars” (4).  This complicated task (that Morrison aptly describes) makes a narrative “work.”  It makes a narrative more than a good read.  It makes a narrative believable, and it challenges the reader to rethink the conventions of society.  I am pleased to say that the class texts (written by African American female writers) all force the reader to not only contemplate what Morrison describes as “silent wars,” but they also establish the strategies a writer must employ in order to fight these wars.  Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Ramona Lofton’s (Sapphire) Push all fight racialized “wars” that explore the slippages among race, class, and gender.  Additionally, these authors fight their silent wars by depicting various offenses of black female victimization, by examining the negotiation of identity, and by illuminating the obtainment of agency as victimized characters transmogrify into black female victors.  

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative is the pseudo-political nature of her account.  To put it plainly, Jacobs has to negotiate and write from several critical spaces without offending those individuals that she must persuade to speak against slavery (like white males, white females, free blacks, and abolitionists).  The reader literally watches Jacobs appeal to a diverse audience with respect to the slavocracy: A patriarchal hierarchy that placed white males on the highest level.  White females were placed on the next level; black males were placed above black females.  Therefore, Jacobs had to use language as a means of painting a vivid picture of slavery without overtly challenging the aforementioned hierarchy. This is evident in Jacobs’s assertion, “My mistress was so kind to me that I was always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her as much as my young years would permit…I would sit by her side for hours…When she thought I was tired, she would send me out to run and jump” (448).  This statement contains many embedded messages.  On the one hand, Jacobs gains trust from her white (predominantly female) readers because she does not protest her inferiority.  Rather, Jacobs uses this statement to prove that a cohesive and respectful relationship between black and white women could exist in which the black woman labors and the white woman employs or oversees the labor.  Thus this is a call to unification between women.  By using the possibility to stand united without opposing the hierarchy, Harriet Jacobs successfully negotiates her racial identity as well as her gender identity.  In this instance, Jacobs allows the “gender card” to trump the “race card.”   

Throughout the course of the narrative, Jacobs’s feminist appeals become more pronounced as she describes the victimization of the female slave whose reproductive system becomes a double-edged sword that continues to render her helpless and powerless.  “I once saw a young slave girl dying soon after the birth of a child nearly white.  In her agony she called out ‘O Lord, come and take me’” (455)!  This plea is almost the central force of this narrative because it distinguishes the licentious relationship between male slave owners and female slaves inasmuch as the slave owners misused their authority and often forced slave women into sexual relationships.  More, Harriet Jacobs uses the unconditional love that a mother has for her children to show that a common bond—motherhood—exists between women regardless of race.

Still, even though Harriet Jacobs describes horrific accounts of verbal abuse at the hands of Dr. Flint, she never plays the role of the “tragic mulatto.”  In fact, Jacobs never stops fighting.  She never gives in, and finally she finds refuge from Dr. Flint’s immoral advancements in a small garret.  It is ironic that such a small space becomes an expansive space of protection for Jacobs.  Harriet Jacobs obtains agency via the negotiation of her multiple identities (black, bi-racial, female, slave) and her ability to recount the atrocities of slavery.

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a literary masterpiece, which uses a variety of strategies in order to confront social inequalities.  However, Morrison’s brilliance lies both in her illumination of the erroneous concept of “black savagery” in American literature and her willingness to confront those ways that blacks exploit and oppress each other.  In this novel, each character represents a person with a fragmented identity searching to become whole.  Pilate (a quasi-supernatural female character who was born with neither a navel nor a living mother to nurture her) is perhaps the most important female character in Song of Solomon because she is the black community’s proverbial “dirty laundry.” She is a poor, black, desexualized woman with nappy hair and a bastard child.  Pilate is uncivilized with little respect for amassing wealth.  She “lived in a narrow single-story house whose basement seemed to be rising from rather than settling into the ground.  She had no electricity because she would not pay for the service” (27).  In many respects, Morrison never allows Pilate to be either a mammy or a matriarch.  During the course of the novel, Pilate negotiates her race, class, and gender, and she seems to take the middle ground. 

At the beginning of Song of Solomon, Pilate Dead is characterized a strong head-of-household who speaks in a fearless and straight forward manner.  From Pilate’s storytelling, the subtle ways that she commands Milkman and Guitar’s respect, and her assault on the man who attempts to beat her daughter, it is obvious that she is a matriarch.  However, towards the middle of the novel, Pilate begins to transform into a big, black nurturing Mammy who attempts to love and restore everyone (Ruth’s sanity, Milkman’s identity, Hagar’s love of self, and Macon’s humanity).  

Whereas many people are baffled by the fluid characterization of Pilate, I assert that Morrison deliberately transcribes such contradictions because she seeks to encourage discourse on the fallacy of the “strong black woman” myth.  For such romanticization of gender and race, further oppresses the African American woman who is often characterized, byway of essentialisms, as the loyal mother or the loyal servant in American literature.  First, this Mammy vs. Matriarch characterization provides the comfort of the desexualized black woman who (unlike Harriet Jacobs) is never considered attractive by black or white males.  Second, the Mammy vs. Matriarch paradigm alludes to Eurocentric standards of beauty (exalting the thin, youthful-looking, clean, white female with long and straight hair and a feminine prowess) that further victimize Pilate (short hair, “old,” “unkempt,” “poor,” with “berry-black lips,” “tall…and looked as though she were holding her crotch”), as she is considered ugly by the constituents of her community.   Through her portrayal of Pilate, Morrison proves that American Literature/African American Literature exhaustively depicts black women as “strong” but unlovable women.  

While it is unsurprising that Pilate obtains self-actualization through her refusal to hate others in this novel, Morrison wants Pilate’s dying words (“I wish I’d a knowed more people.  I would of loved ‘em all) to haunt the audience because Pilate’s negotiation of identity is centered on loving others.  The Mammy/Matriarch loved others even though one can easily argue that she does not love herself.  Ironically, Pilate manages to garner sympathy from readers although she semi-violates a universal rule: “Love thy neighbors as you love thyself.”

Push is a heart wrenching novel that sheds light on the horrendous social realities of the black underclass.  This novel is remarkable in its determination to replace a poor black victim’s shame with hope.  Sapphire fights wars of economic injustice, abuse, and the continued invisibility of the black underclass by weaving a thought-provoking novel via phenomenal narration that does not allow (Precious) to stop striving for agency.

Former student Rosalyn Mack explicates Precious’s disjointed identity and those ways in which a lack of economic sustainability and an unsupportive family structure impact Precious.  Mack explains, “At the beginning of the narrative we meet a young woman whose only true possession is her name.  By controlling what she allows others to call her, she maintains her identity and sense of self.  And yet even her identity is under siege since Precious must fight her mother’s attempts to refashion Precious into a younger version of herself.”  As Rosalyn Mack asserts, Precious’s unhealthy environment and pathological mother aid in her construction of self.  And, on page 31, Precious tells the reader how she sees herself.  “I big, I talks, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say.  But I can see when the picture come back I don’t exist.  Don’t nobody want me.  Don’t nobody need me.”  She continues, “I know who they say I am—vampire sucking the system’s blood.  Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.”  This unflinching critique of poverty-stricken blacks transcends racialized discourse, for Precious is speaking of a complicity committed by white and black Americans.  Neither group is comfortable dealing with impoverished blacks.  Their perpetuation of black invisibility is but a form of victimization because blacks and whites have excluded Precious from mainstream society and thus silenced her voice.

Still, the reader witnesses Precious’s ability to thrive because she chooses to negotiate her cultural identity (one that does not value education) and attend an alternative school that eventually becomes a tight-knit support system that encourages Precious to rebirth herself.  As Precious slowly gains literacy skills, her self-concept begins to change.  She finally feels connected to a cause worthy system (alternative education).  Precious achieves agency through her self-determination and her passionate desire to become literate.  Since she is steadfast in her ambitions to become a better mother to her son, a better reader and writer, and human being who is adamant in telling her story, the reader easily senses that Precious’s battle with HIV will only make her more unwavering in her quest to live.  Paradoxically, in the midst of Precious’s trials, she avows, “I see my own [beauty]” (140).  Additionally, Precious learns what many African Americans have yet to learn: she is beautiful regardless of society’s (white or black Americans) rejection of her. 

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni.  Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992