LITR 5731: Seminar in
American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake,
fall 2001
Student Research Project
Erin Gouner
Seminar in American Minority Literature
Dr. Craig White
December 4, 2001
Double
Minorities
American culture thrives on an ideology of social equality and equal
opportunity. The need to uphold this ideology manifests in the following
statement from The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (729). However, if this ideal were a
plausible reality, then slavery would have ended in 1776 instead of around one
hundred years later. Moreover, there would not be a need for terminology such
as: dominant culture, minority group, or affirmative action. The fact that the
statement has to be written, especially in such an ambiguous manner, reveals the
extent that this truth is not self-evident. American history would be very
different if Thomas Jefferson had decided to write, "that all
[aristocratic, protestant, white] men are created equal." Yet, the
ambiguity of the term "men" has allowed oppressed minority groups to
fight in hopes of achieving the ideal of equality. Numerous groups have
protested to achieve the dream of egalitarianism—Antislavery Movement,
Women’s Movement, Civil Rights Movement. However, what happens when the
individual belongs to more than one minority group? Minority women, sometimes
referred to as double minorities, have altered oppressions placed upon them and
have to fight for equality differently than the men of their own ethnic/racial
group.
One form of oppression minority women face that differs from their male
counterparts is domestic violence. Typically, society views victims of domestic
violence as white women, but the abusers are thought of as African American men
(class discussion). This does not mean that there are a lot of African American
men seeking out helpless white women to beat up. One reason for this stereotype
is that the dominant culture (white men) is not going to allow themselves to be
thought of as violent abusers. Another reason is that white women, being close
to the dominant culture, have the ability to seek help to get out of their
abusive situation. Jenny Rivera, in Puerto Rico’s Domestic Violence
Prevention and Intervention Law, points out the statistics of domestic
violence in the following:
Annually, three to
four million women in the United States are targets of violence by their
intimate partners or spouses…violence against women by spouses or intimate
male companions accounts for 30 percent of all homicides of women. There is no
avoiding or denying the prevalence and nondiscriminative nature of this
violence, for it cuts across all racial, ethnic, religious, educational and
socio-economic lines. (347)
Rivera seems to point out that domestic
violence brings an equality to all women because they are united in that they
are, or have the potential to be, oppressed by abusive men. Domestic violence
can occur in any race, religion, or class; thus blurring these categories and
uniting the women as an oppressed minority group. This phenomenon is exemplified
through Bone, in Bastard Out of Carolina, and Precious, in Push.
Both girls suffer from physical abuse, but one is white and the other is black.
However, this distinguishes minority women from minority men. Unlike minority
women, minority men do not have a form of oppression that allows them to cross
racial, religious, or socio-economic boundaries. Furthermore, minority women
gain a certain amount of power in the blurring of boundaries because society
provides assistance for women to get away from their oppressors. On the other
hand, men who are physically abused do not have the same societal benefits as
women. Society places high standards on masculinity, which include being tough.
A man has a harder time coming forward about being a victim of domestic violence
because he will be emasculated in the eyes of society.
One of the reasons for domestic violence in minority groups can be
attributed to historical events. African American domestic violence is thought
to come from the end of slavery. African Americans had been at the will of slave
owners for so long that they were not able to set norms in relationships. Karen
Anderson, in Changing Women, discusses a possible historical reason for
domestic violence among African Americans in the following:
Men’s abusive
behavior was indirectly reinforced by the counsels of whites (especially men)
regarding the appropriateness of patriarchal family patterns. Laura Towne, a
white who went south to teach blacks, observed that speakers had been advising
black men to assert their will in families and establish their right to keep
their "concerns" as men to themselves in order "to get the women
into their proper place." As a result, the men had concluded that masculine
domestic power was an "inestimable privilege." (164)
Karen Anderson’s point that domestic
violence in African American families started as a way of establishing family
norms has some validity. Since African Americans were at the will of their
owners (white men) for so long, understandably they looked for advice from
whites for establishing proper marriages. Adrien Katherine Wing, in A
Critical Race Feminist Conceptualization of Violence, also offers an
interesting view of why oppressed men might act violently against their family
in this passage:
…the men of an
oppressed group are not allowed to be "men" in the culturally
constructed use of the term. In effect, they are not allowed to dominate in the
outside public sphere of government and business…One of the few areas where
the oppressed men can exert some limited expression of their maleness is through
oversight of their women in the "inside" or private sphere…The only
sphere where the "emasculated" men can take out their frustration is
the private one affecting their own women and children. Thus, their families are
going to be disproportionately subject to domestic violence as they bear the
brunt of frustration of male high unemployment and political impotence. (333)
Wing makes a very valid point in this
argument. Traditional society places an emphasis on men as providers for their
families and as the head of the household. Since minority groups typically have
a strong sense of traditional family values, men are held to this position of
breadwinner. When the man is unable to fulfill his duty as provider for his
family, he can become frustrated with his position in society. Therefore, he
exerts power in the one sphere he knows that he has control over—the
household. This can lead to domestic violence because of his frustration in his
oppressed societal position, and his ability to enforce complete dominance over
his family physically. However, in this traditional family structure, minority
women do not have the same ability exercise control to relieve frustration. When
minority women feel frustration over their economic situation and/or the
oppression of their husbands, then they really have few outlets to release their
aggression. The minority women then become victims of their situation because
they have no way of exercising control over their situation.
Bone exemplifies the problem double minorities face in the domestic
violence situation. Bone fits into the double minority dynamic because she falls
into the minority groups of low class, female, and possibly race (since there
are suggestions that her heritage is of mixed ethnicities—namely Native
American and African American). Bone’s abuser, Daddy Glen demonstrates the
syndrome that Adrien Katherine Wing described of the socially emasculated male
practicing dominance over his family. Daddy Glen’s frustration stems from his
inability to provide for his family. He is continually losing jobs, and the
family has to continually move as a result. To add to his emasculation, Bone’s
mother has to work harder to provide for the family. Daddy Glen’s frustration
also manifests from his feelings of inferiority to his father and brothers. Bone
describes the contrast in Daddy Glen’s character in these lines:
Around his father,
Glen became unsure of himself and too careful. He broke out in a sweat, and his
eyes kept flickering back to his daddy’s face as if he had to keep watching or
miss the thing he needed most to see. He would pull at his pants like a little
boy and drop his head if anyone asked him a question. It was hard to put that
image of him next to the way he was all the rest of the time—the swaggering
bantam rooster man who called himself my daddy. (99)
Bone observes the feelings of inferiority
that Glen has outside of his home, and she contrasts that image with the violent
"in control" persona he enforces with her. Bone is not able to escape
her violent situation until she is forced to live with her Aunt Raylene, who
chooses to live alone outside of the norms of society. The reason for Aunt
Raylene’s solitude is described in this paragraph:
One time you talked
to me about how I live, with no husband or children or even a good friend. Well,
I had me a friend when I was with the carnival, somebody I loved better than
myself, a lover I would have spent my life with and should have. But I was crazy
with love, too crazy to judge what I was doing. I did a terrible thing…Bone,
no woman can stand to choose between her baby and her lover, between her child
and her husband. I made the woman I loved choose. She stayed with her baby, and
I came back here alone. (300)
Aunt Raylene seems to reflect the Daddy Glen
character in these lines in that she also made her lover choose. However, Bone
gets to see an alternative outcome to the situation because Raylene’s lover
chose her child. Aunt Raylene’s house provides an interesting symbol of
escape—Bone leaves a male dominated house to enter a home with no male
presence. This appears to suggest that one method available to double minorities
to gain equality is to live outside of the norms prescribed by their oppressors.
The physical abuse Precious is subjected to also falls into the dynamic
described by Adrien Katherine Wing; although, in Precious’ situation the
physical abuser is her mother. Precious’ mother feels frustration because her
husband/lover, Precious’ father, is having sex with Precious. However, this is
not the normal horror a mother would feel if her child were being molested.
Precious’ mother is upset because she feels that Precious has stolen her
husband from her. Precious describes a moment of physical abuse she suffered
after she had her first child in these lines:
About three months
after baby born, I’m still twelve when all this happen, Mama slap me. HARD.
Then she pick up cast-iron skillet, thank god it was no hot grease in it, and
she hit me so hard on back I fall on floor. Then she kick me in ribs. Then she
say, "Thank you Miz Claireece Precious Jones for [having sex with] my
husband you nasty little slut!" (19)
Mama feels aggravated because the man she
loves treats her poorly; therefore, she relieves those feelings by exerting
control over her daughter. Like Bone, Precious leaves her violent home life, but
Precious leaves by choice. Precious gets to live at a halfway house with her son
Abdul. Also like Bone, the halfway house represents a society without a male
presence. The halfway house is a place women go to escape male dominated homes
in hopes of a better life.
Another issue that double minorities face that differs from minority
males is the consequences of sex. All women can be victims of sexual abuse
and/or the consequences that can occur from sex—pregnancy, sexually
transmitted diseases. However, African American women were placed in an
institution, slavery, which allowed white men to have complete control over
them. Karen Anderson, in Changing Women, discusses this issue in the
following passage:
The politics of
race and sex—expressed in the systematic sexual abuse of black women by white
men—also precluded the enforcement by black men of norms of premarital
chastity for black women. (162)
The sexual abuse of African American women by
white slave owners kept African Americans from enforcing the ideal norm of
virginity. During slavery, African American women were almost completely
voiceless and choiceless about having sex with their masters.
In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,
Harriet Jacobs exemplifies the female slaves inability to control her virginity.
As a female slave in her master’s house, she was subject to her master’s
sexual advances. Jacobs explains her feelings about her master’s desires and
the struggle of female slaves in the following comments:
The felon’s home
in a penitentiary is preferable. He may repent, and turn from the error of his
ways, and so find peace; but it is not so with a favorite slave. She is not
allowed to have any pride of character. It is deemed a crime in her to wish to
be virtuous. p. 363
This statement from Jacobs demonstrates the
slave’s feelings of imprisonment by comparing her situation to that of a
criminal. The institution of slavery is already a prison, but at least the felon
in a penitentiary deserves his loss of freedom. The imprisonment of female
slaves furthers when her master sexually desires her. An African American male
slave would not have to worry about his mistress making sexual advances at him
because she is also under the control of the white slave owner. Both the
mistress and the male slave are single minorities and they are under the control
of the dominant slave owner. Therefore, the helplessness of the female slaves
situation is unique because she is treated as property like a male slave, and
she is subject to the sexual mastery the white male has over his wife. Her
master controls every aspect of her life—her workload, her portion of food,
her living conditions, and her punishments. His control over her life makes the
act of telling him no a very difficult and delicate task. Furthermore, Jacobs
discusses the consequences of the slave owner’s sexual acts with his female
slaves and the misplaced aggression of his jealous wife in the following:
Southern women
often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do
not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as
marketable as the pigs on the plantation. p. 368
The consequence of the promiscuous master is
children from his female slaves. These children deviate further from the
dominant cultures acceptance because they are interracial. Moreover, the African
American woman’s struggle becomes more devastating because her children are
sold to keep from being a reminder to the slave owner’s wife of her
husband’s infidelity. The female slave has to suffer and lose her family in
order to ease the mind of her master and his wife. Jacobs begins a relationship
with a white man named Mr. Sands, and she has children by him, in hopes that he
will buy her freedom. Jacobs has to rely on Mr. Sands to free her because she
knows that she cannot purchase her own freedom. However, Mr. Sands never offers
to buy her freedom or his children’s freedom from the Flints. Jacobs shows
that she is forced to rely on white men for protection and she hopes, freedom.
Ironically, a white woman eventually purchases her and her children’s freedom.
A woman purchasing her freedom is also interesting because women free Precious
and Bone from their persecution. Harriet Jacobs demonstrates the problems facing
female slaves because she is an object of sex and jealousy, she is choiceless
about the future of her family, and she has to rely on someone else to purchase
her freedom.
Bone also is sexually choiceless when her stepfather, Daddy Glen, rapes
her. Any woman can be raped, but what makes Bone fit into the double minority
dynamic is her inability to trust the established law enforcement to protect her
from Daddy Glen. When the sheriff first starts talking to Bone, she wants to
tell him everything so that she can feel safe. However, as the sheriff keeps
talking to her, he sounds more like Daddy Glen. The sheriff sounds like Daddy
Glen when he says: "Some of your people are out there. I got the doctor
talking to them" (296). The use of the words "your people"
instead of your family creates an immediate distinction. The sheriff sounds like
Daddy Glen when he would belittle Bone’s relatives. The use of these words
creates the distinction that Bone’s family is low class trash, while the
sheriff is of a higher class. By the sheriff setting distance between himself
and Bone, she can easily see that the sheriff is looking down on her. In the
following paragraph Bone expresses her mistrust for Sheriff Cole:
"Bone, I want
you to know that no one is gonna hurt you. No one is gonna be allowed to hurt
you. We can see that you’ve been through enough. Just tell me who beat you,
girl. Tell me." His voice was calm, careful, friendly. He was Daddy Glen in
uniform. The world was full of Daddy Glens, and I didn’t want to be in the
world anymore. (296)
Bone has this mistrust of the law because the
sheriff is a man just like Daddy Glen. She sees men in the position of power and
she feels like she is being forced to bend to the sheriff’s will. Therefore,
she chooses to no longer participate in the socially constructed, male-dominated
world by refusing to expose the horror of her rape to this man.
Furthermore, Precious exemplifies her choicelessness in sex and the
consequences from being sexually abused. Precious’ mother constantly accuses
Precious of stealing her man (Precious’ father). Precious finally voices to
her mother her choicelessness in the situation in these lines:
She still foaming
at mouf, talking bout her husband I spoze to steal. I do tell her one thing as I
going down the stairs. I say, "Nigger rape me. I not steal shit fat bitch
your husband RAPE me RAPE ME!" (74)
These lines are Precious expressing to her
mother and herself that she did not choose to have her father sleep with her.
Only after Precious has gained literacy can she gain the voice to speak out
against her situation. What adds to the unpleasantness of Precious’ rape is
that she suffers many sexual consequences. One of the consequences that Precious
has to face is having children. Precious dictates the following questions when
she has her first child at the age of twelve:
‘What’s your
daddy’s name?’
‘Carl Kenwood
Jones, born in the Bronx.’
She say,
‘What’s the baby’s father’s name?’
I say, ‘Carl
Kenwood Jones, born in the same Bronx.’
She quiet quiet.
Say, ‘Shame, thas a shame. Twelve years old…
She say, ‘Was you
ever, I mean did you ever get to be a chile?’ Thas a stupid question, did I
ever get to be a chile? I am a chile. p. 12-13
Not only does Precious have a child at the
age of twelve, but she also has to put on the birth certificate that she was
raped. However, the admittance of her father being the father of her child on
the birth certificate is not enough to get Precious out of her abusive
situation. She has to also tell the police, and like Bone, Precious shows her
mistrust for the law. She refuses to tell the police that her father raped her
in the following:
She moves the men
in uniform suits back from my bed. Say my baby is in special intense care and I
will get to see her soon and won’t I please answer the nice men’s questions.
But they ain’ nice men. They pigs. I ain’ crazy. I don’t tell them
nothing. (13)
Because Precious does not trust the
established law enforcement, she refuses to tell them about the sexual abuse she
is subjected to. This makes her part of the double minority because she feels
that the law cannot help her; whereas, a white woman would be more likely to
rely on the police for help. In this passage Precious also reveals another
consequence of familial sexual abuse, which is birth defects. Her first child is
born with Down syndrome, which could result from incest and how young she was
when she gave birth. Furthermore, Precious demonstrates yet another consequence
of her sexual abuse—AIDS. Since she is choiceless about sex, she is also
choiceless about protecting herself. Carl, her father, dies from AIDS and
Precious discovers that she is infected with HIV. Precious reflects on her
situation in the following:
I’m not happy to
be HIV positive. I don’t understand why some kids git a good school and mother
and father and some don’t. But Rita say forgit the WHY ME shit and git on to
what’s next. (139)
Precious expresses that she is not happy with
the situation and that she did not choose to have the life she was dealt. But
Precious still manages to have a positive outlook because there is a possibility
of something better, now that she is away from her mother and father.
The double minority dynamic unfolds in the area of education as well.
Double minorities are seen as academically inferior to their male counterparts.
Cameron McCarthy, in Beyond the Poverty of Theory in Race Relations:
Nonsynchrony and Social Difference in Education, discusses the low
expectations placed on African American girls in the following:
…teachers tended
to identify at least one Black male in each class whom they singled out as an
academic achiever or a "superstar." In none of the six elementary
school classrooms that Grant studied was any of the Black girls singled out as a
high academic achiever. Instead, Grant maintains, Black girls were typified as
"average achievers" and assigned to "average" or "below
average" track placements and ability groups. (344)
This study demonstrates that society places
low expectations on double minorities. If anything double minorities are a group
that need high expectations placed on them so that they can rise to the
challenge. Precious is especially a victim of these low educational
expectations. She is sixteen before anyone even tries to do something about her
inability to read. Precious has a verbal explosion in math class when she is
asked to open her book to a certain page. She explains the reason for her
outburst in the following:
I didn’t want to
hurt him or embarrass him like that you know. But I couldn’t let him, anybody,
know, page 122 look like page 152, 22, 3, 6, 5—all the pages look alike to me.
‘N I really do want to learn. (5)
Instead of the teachers realizing that
Precious may not be able to read, they decided to ignore her because she sat in
the back and did not disturb anyone. Educationally, Precious getting pregnant
with her second child is a blessing because she gained literacy as a result.
McCarthy points out another stereotype place on African American girls in
the classroom. McCarthy states that "teachers tended to deploy Black girls
as "go-betweens" when they wanted to communicate rules and convey
messages informally to Black boys" (344). She goes on to say the following:
In significant
ways, teachers emphasized the social, caring, and nurturing qualities of the
Black females in their first-grade classrooms. In subtle ways, teachers
encouraged "black girls to pursue social contacts, rather than press
towards high academic achievement." (345)
McCarthy is pointing out that society places
an emphasis on motherly qualities in double minorities. While doing this,
society also de-emphasizes the importance of an education. This is sad because a
good education is the way for some of these students to excel in life. Precious
also fits into the social expectations placed on African American girls that
McCarthy pointed out. Precious acts as the keeper of order in Mr. Wicher’s
math class in the following:
Kids is scared of
me. "Coon fool," I tell one kid done jumped up. "Sit down, stop
ackin’ silly." Mr Wicher look at me confuse but grateful. I’m like the
polices for Mr Wicher. I keep the law and order. I like him, I pretend he is my
husband and we live together in Weschesser, wherever that is. (6)
Like in the McCarthy scenario, Precious is
acting as the go-between for the teacher and the other kids. Also, Precious
imagines herself as Mr. Wicher’s wife, which can be attributed to the
nurturing of her maternal/familial side.
However, Precious is forced to go to
alternative school when she becomes pregnant with her second child. The tests at
alternative school discover that Precious is illiterate, and they place her in
pre-GED classes. In this class, Precious begins to gain literacy and with that
skill she also gains a voice. Precious receives an enlightenment on her
situation, and how she can change her life for the better. Her gain in knowledge
allows her to understand that Mama is using her to get extra welfare. This is
important because Precious could be getting that money to live on her own with
her son Abdul. She also begins to stand up for herself against her mother and
move out. Most importantly education gives Precious the ability to assess her
situations and improve upon them. Precious talks about her progress in the
following:
I took the TABE
test again, this time it’s 7.8…What does the score actually mean? I read
according to the test around 7th or 8th grade level now.
Before on the test I score 2.0 then 2.8. (139)
This passage shows not only Precious’
improvement in her education, but also her improvement in critically analyzing
information. Precious can now question what the test score means to her worth as
a person—if anything. Furthermore, the actual book represents Precious’
ability to gain a voice through literacy. Because the book is written from the
point of view of Precious, the book can only exists because she has the ability
to write her story.
Bone also represents the double minorities ability to rise above
oppression through education. As the abuse Daddy Glen inflicts on Bone
increases, she begins to escape into books. Bone describes her increased escape
into books in the following lines:
…let me spend as
I pleased, mostly on secondhand books from racks at the thrift store that I
could then trade in at the paperback exchange. Reese complained that I never
played with her anymore, that I was always working or reading or sleeping. When
school let out for the summer, I found a hiding place in the woods near Aunt
Alma’s where I could camp for hours with a bag of Hershey Kisses and a book.
(119)
This escape into books allows Bone to regain
some of her childhood because she can get wrapped up into fantasy. The fact that
she hides in the woods to read symbolizes the books as a romantic escapism.
Double minorities face forms of oppression that their male counterparts
are not subjected to. Part of the reason for this is that minority women face
the struggles of their ethnic and/or class group as well as the struggles of
women. Problems such as domestic violence and sexual abuse unite minority women
with white women because anyone can be a target of abuse. This uniting under
oppression is something that is specific to women, and gives minority women an
advantage that minority men do not have access to. However, minority women
differ from white women in these situations because most do not see the law as a
solution to their problems. Despite low social expectations educationally,
minority women have the most to gain from receiving an education. These books
seem to suggest that minority women gain power through other women. In the case
of Precious, Miss. Rain and the gay and lesbian group help Precious get out of
her oppressive situation. Bone escapes from her abusive situation to her Aunt
Raylene’s house, which has no male presence. Finally, Jacobs’ freedom is
bought by a white woman. Finally, education allows minority women to rise in
social/economic class and freedom to control their own lives. As Precious
demonstrates, education also provides hope for future generations. Precious
expresses her hope for her son Abdul with these words:
The sun is coming
through the window splashing down on him, on the pages of his book. It’s
called The Black BC’s. I love to hold him on my lap, open up the world
to him. (139)
The sun shining down on him gives a celestial
tone to her words. Also, the fact that she is reading to him starts the process
of literacy in his life—he will not have to struggle with school like she did.
Furthermore, Precious realizes that literacy is opening up the world to him
because he is gaining access to information. Bone, Precious, and Jacobs
demonstrate the struggles facing minority women and the options to overcome
oppression available to them.
Works
Cited
Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina.
New York: Plume, 1992.
Anderson, Karen. Changing Woman: A History
of Racial Ethnic Women in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press,
1996.
Jefferson, Thomas. "Autobiography."
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 4th ed., v.1, ed.
Nina Baym. New York: Norton, 1994.
McCarthy, Cameron. "Beyond the Poverty
of Theory in Race Relations: Nonsynchrony and Social Difference in
Education." Beyond Silenced Voices. Ed. Lois Weis and Michelle Fine.
New York: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Rivera, Jenny. "Puerto Rico’s Domestic
Violence Prevention and Intervention Law." Global Critical Race Feminism.
Ed. Adrien Katherine Wing. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Sapphire. Push. New York: First
Vintage Contemporaries Edition, 1997.
Wing, Adrien Katherine. "A Critical Race
Feminist Conceptualization of Violence." Global Critical Race Feminism.
Ed. Adrien Katherine Wing. New York: New York University Press, 2000.