I was very intrigued by our conversation about the mask in Monday's class as well. The whole idea that we could all possibly be wearing masks to hide our true identities to one another just seems rather sad and disappointing. Society just forms these restrictions of how you have to act and look or certain way which makes life just more difficult i think. Granted sometimes we choose to wear the masks and sometimes people might for their safety. I would hope that in this century we wouldn't have to think in that sense, but realistically i guess its not really a possibility. I also started to think of the Delany poem "The Mask" which was brought up. I saw it as someone observing the other individual that they might be acquainted with, but not really know. So the speaker sees this woman and doesn't really now what to think of her emotion: "Such baffled yearning in her eyes, / Such pain upon her face! / I turned aside until the mask / Was slipped once more in place." This is where i started to get confused I guess. I mean who exactly is wearing the mask? Is the speaker referring to a mask he/she is wearing or are they both wearing masks? I felt like the speaker might be trying to hide his/her emotion as well. It makes me think that they are both wearing masks. Everyone is just kind of hiding from each other.

"Heritage" and "Runagate Runagate"

I was really struck by the last two stanzas of Countee Cullen’s poem “Heritage.” I think he hones in on a theme we’ve mentioned before: some blacks feel a certain level of falseness inherent in their Christian worship. The speaker of the poem seems to express a sense of remorse, misguidance, and disconnectedness. He wishes that he had a black God to worship so that he might feel more connected to his God. The speaker seems skeptical that his God’s plight is comparable to his own. The speaker also seems to privately worship his own “heathen” Gods. Perhaps this makes him feel more connected to his African past and the African landscape that he spent the first several stanzas describing.

I really liked the first stanza of Robert Hayden’s “Runagate Runagate.” The repetition of words like “darkness,” “pursuing,” “night,” “beckoning,” and “going” creates tension. This tension is also reflected in the lack of punctuation. It makes the reader feel breathless, nervous, and tense when reading the long, run-on description of a secret flight to freedom. It’s comparable to the way Sterling A. Brown’s “Southern Road” conjured images of a chain gang simply by the way the reader was forced to stop and say, “hunh.” I think that the way “Runagate Runagate” looks on the page also adds to the confusion and flightiness—it’s very scattered and frenzied.

The Mask: When does it matter?

I was really set to thinking after our class on Monday, this whole idea of selves and the portrayal of facades was truly fascinating. It provides so many levels to the way we see people and the way we perceive that they see themselves. I began to wonder after class, is this self-defense mechanism a curse or a blessing, is it protective or is it deceiving? After much thought, i can to the conclusion that it depends on the motives behind the "mask" and maybe it depends on the level of awareness. Who knows if all of us are unconsciously wearing masks to shade the most gruesome aspects of our lives, who knows if who we display on a regular basis is not who we truly are. How would you know if you had never stepped out from behind this mask? Could it be something we are born into? It is amazing to look at the way people act when their lives are put on the line, or when they are forced into desperation and their instincts take hold. I know this may be a poor example of this, but look at Hitler's rise to power. He convinced the majority of his country that Jewish people were the cause of their misery, and they believed it. Now you must think about who these people were before Hitler came along. Remember that they were all distraught over the unimaginable inflation and the difficulty of living. They were desperate, but they were good people, and so are all people as we tend to think. However, if placed in a situation that could potentially lead to death, people take off their mask and bare their fangs full. So who is more domesticated? Cows or Man.

The Void

In reading “What White Publishers Won’t Print,” not only was I captivated by the argument of the piece, something that I believe is true but have never noticed before, but I also couldn’t help but wonder: is it just that publishers won’t print the work in these “voids”? Or is it possible that the work of the voids is simply not there?
I don’t mean to imply that the work wasn’t being created or that it wasn’t good enough, because I think that we have read just a few of the multitudes of amazing and varied works created around and before this time. My point is more of a reference to the idea that literary works depicting “every day” upper to middle class black people might not have been as prolific among the African American communities themselves. We have seen some of the commentary and had class discussions about the view of these “free rich blacks” apparently abandoning their race by pretending to be white, which often created a hybrid racial barrier, if not, more literally, an economic barrier. This then could explain why maybe literary works that filled some of the void mentioned by Hurston went un-published, or even unwritten because this every-day successful group became another “other” as opposed to part of the same self.
Another thought that Hurston referenced was the idea that pieces that didn’t contain racial conflict or commentary were not entertaining enough to be published. The thing that struck me about this idea was its application to Countee Cullen’s bio in that it says he tried NOT to write about racial issues, and in so doing actually illustrated or manifested the racial conflict within himself. This idea is interesting as it begs the question about whether race can ever be forgotten or ignored, and also if there is such thing as an unbiased or un-colored (whether white, black or otherwise) piece of work? The same may go for religion, gender…etc.
I realize in re-reading this that both of my questions/comments are unclear and may imply questions/thoughts that I do not intend. But, I guess they are really trying to start the discussion about how this void came to exist in literary work and also to examine different assumptions at the root of the idea.

Discussion Questions for 2/25

1. Zora Neal Hurston's article is a veritable call to arms for publishers to acknowledge the average and 'true' Negro; one that feels and loves like normal (white) people. Is there even a popular genre for the normal white in today's society? Will there ever be one for the normal black?

2. What does the structure and layout of 'Runagate' add to the meaning? Also word choice and punctuation

3. Why does Hayden see freedom as a 'beautiful and terrible thing' in 'Frederick Douglass? Have any other poems or readings given you this feel or understanding of freedom?

4. What does Cullen's 'Heritage' evoke? What emotions? feelings? beliefs? Is he right? Can this constitute as a mask? a double consciousness?

5. What do you make of Cullen's feelings toward Christianity in both 'Heritage' and 'From the Dark Tower? Does "From the Darl Tower" encourage meekness or action?

A Different Kind of Hate

Okay, so I don’t want to get too excited by this, I mean, I could have been reading his writings wrong, but I think in class today we began to prove one of Nietzsche’s theories wrong! Wikipedia, Cliffsnotes, and Sparknotes doesn’t really go into much detail about this, so let me explain it really quickly: in Nietzsche’s book, On the Genealogy of Morals, he has a chapter called “Good and Evil, Good and Bad”. In one part of this chapter, he says that those in power one day looked at themselves, and said that they liked being themselves, and therefore they were good. They described themselves as anything that isn’t them as not good (so therefore bad). For example, if you’re not straight (good), then you’re gay (bad). If you’re not male (good), then you’re female (bad). Each of the lesser beings are merely defined as what the greater ones aren’t… I believed in this theory until today.

Today we discussed the idea that white people could not have any “black blood” in them. Aka, in order to be white, you can’t have any African Americans in your family tree, or in simpler terms: in order to be white (good), you can’t be black (bad). WAIT A MINUTE!!! This can’t be right according to the theory! His theory says the good define the bad as not themselves, not the good define themselves as not being bad! I know that this sounds like only a slight difference, but this small difference can determine how the “good” define themselves and see the world!

Okay, I know this isn’t a philosophy class, but still, it’s interesting how the hatred towards African Americans can be so different than any other hatred that I know.

Langston Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers

This was the poem that really stuck out to me. It is not due to the way it was written, nor is is a factor of content; i am baffled by who the possible speaker is, this "Ancient" narrator. I have been considering the possibility that it is a collection of things: black thought, spirit, and history from even prehistoric times. This singular characterization, suggests to me that it is quite possibly a melding of these ideas; but could it be something more. Is it a celestial body made up of all the souls of blacks, a sort of segregated heaven -- or is it God himself? This i am not conclusively positive about, but it is interesting to think about. When i read a poem i think about how it can be performed, this is just something that has become a part of my normal poetic interpretation, but it is something that i value very much as it provides me with another way to view poetry. So what is the epic situation here? I don't know, what do you think?

Another thing that was quite compelling to me, was the way that Sterling A Brown's poem, "Strong men" and Hughes' "Mother to Son". It is interesting to notice a vast difference between the two target audiences and the similarity of the two messages. Hughes seems to be targeting the black youth specifically, while leaving an opening for a more mature audience's interpretation. Brown seems to be targeting the white and mature audience while leaving a venue for the younger readers to participate in. It is curious enough, though, that the message seems to be the same, as if this common attitude was applicable to two different time periods. It is amazing to see that it has the same affect on its readers, one more dramatically than the other. Brown seems to be more ominous about his approach, and Hughes more encouraging. They are quite the juxtaposition. I like Brown's for the tone of determination and resilience, but i also like Hughes' for the nurturing situation it is placed in. The context seems genuine and approachable -- maybe more universal, whereas Brown is more race specific in his poem.

nick

Sterling A. Brown

I found Brown’s poem “Southern Road” really interesting. I like the repetition of the word “hunh.” It forced me, when reading, to imagine the swing of the hammer, and the monotony of the work of the chain gang when I was reading. I think that was a very creative auditory device.

I also liked the progression of the poem “Strong Men.” The whole poem documents the things that black men have been subjected to by whites, but it has a hopeful tone in that it discusses the fear that the whites feel regarding their oppressed counterparts. To me there is a lot of pride in the fact that an oppressed people can frighten their oppressors. It makes the reader feel as though the blacks have something left, some defense. I also like how the poem uses some lines from other things we’ve read, i.e.: “walk togedder, chillen,/ Dontcha git weary….” That brings a sense of the history of the situation into the poem. The author notes the transportation of slaves, the work they did on roads and railroads, the poor living conditions blacks were forced into, and segregation. Throughout all this though, there’s a sense of the blacks getting the last laugh, so to speak, and I like that more than other optimistic poems we’ve read.

Not to be Anything

Monday’s conversation about home and being a part of a specific culture was very interesting, and the idea of home still resonates in Sterling Brown’s poetry. In his poem, “Crossing”, he speaks about crossing several rivers, and the traveling will never bring him home. The search for a Utopia continues, even though he writes the poem knowing that it does not exist.

I guess this is the sad part with concrete definitions. Nobody can say that they are fully from one place or another. Everybody’s history is so mixed that it denies a part of their history to say that they are merely from one country. I know it does not bother everybody, but even with immigrant’s now, why do we have to have a set point when we decide that they are “American” according to the culture? Although speaking the language is a huge part of culture, it is not the only aspect of it, and by merely speaking the language, a person cannot say that they are “cultured”, one can easily take a Spanish class, but that does not mean that they are well adapted to either the South American nor the Spanish culture. Because the lines of when a person is a part of a culture or not is so hazy, maybe it is best not to define a specific place as home, and a specific person as a part of the culture.

Diversity in Audience

In reading the poems for today, I found that they worked in with some of our discussion last class. It is clear that as we move forward in time, the social commentary on the new-found complexities in free-black society have become more pointed. Last class we talked about the new economic wrinkle in social class as the distinction between rich Negros who wish to be white, and poor Negros who are proud of the black heritage. The readings for this class by Stearling Brown and Langston Hughes continue to speak of this new conflict and the challenging position of the black race as it reflects upon political protest, art, self-identification, nationalism etc.

Furthermore, the Mitchell reading, the bios and other historical information shed light on the complexities of artistic representation of the race. Langston Hughes mentions at length the division between the rich and poor blacks, and also the complexity of the art work as it is perceived by the audience. I found this particularly striking because of the feelings of racial inferiority and insecurity that was present in one perception, and the pride, power, and soul that could make the same art form sound like music to the ears of another audience. If the art is really only as good as its audience, it is no wonder that black artwork of the time was as diverse as the strata of the black society. And similarly, it is impressive to see the diversity arise despite the nay-saying from the other sides of black and white society.

finding "home"

What Lawrence Hill said about how a person can never really go home stuck with me. Of course, I’d heard this turn of phrase many times before, but I think hearing it again within that context triggered a whole new reflective analysis of how I feel about my home and the prospect of it losing its familiarity. Then, Langston Hughes’s poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers happened along and struck a chord. I don’t think this poem is necessarily about going home in either the literal sense, or in the figurative, death-related sense we’ve discussed in class. But it does attach comfort, familiarity, and depth of soul, even in the midst of the time’s turmoil and grief, to an element of nature that is symbolic of change, passing time, and perseverance. In turn, I found the poem itself to be comforting. I think one of the poem’s underlying messages was that the men and women who were uprooted from Africa had to find their homes in places that were foreign and unfriendly, but which could not help but to hold the essential familiarity of enduring nature. I was comforted not only because the speaker seemed to find peace in his “knowing” of rivers, but also because I learned a new way to think of “home,” which provides for the possibility of never leaving it to begin with, no matter how much distance I cover.

Last Weeks Post

I really enjoyed Alice's discussion on Monday. The conversations that really stuck out to me were: the comparison between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, and also the discussion about philanthropy and the importance for everyone to lend a hand to those less off than them. The idea of philanthropy is one that i am strongly familiar with, as i am the manager of SLU's soliciting firm, Calling All Saints (CAS). Through this job i have been able to have the opportunity to be educated on how important it is for alumni to give back to our school. Believe it or not, it costs a ridiculous amount of money to run this school, way more than the school gets from tuition. The money donated by our alum goes directly into a fund commonly known as the St. Lawrence Fund -- depending on who it is you are trying to persuade at the time, it may also be known as the Parents Fund or the Reunion Fund. From there this money is allocated to all the things that take precedent in the school's scope. That includes: professors and coaches salaries, heating, tuition, study abroad, and building maintenance. The difference is unbelieveable. Instead of paying $65,000 per year, we pay 47,000. So even if you do happen to pay full tuition, you aren't paying the true tuition, thanks to our Alumni we get a discount before we even get our scholarships and grants. Last year we made well over 500,000, our goal this year is to gross around 650,000, and i am happy to say that we are on schedule. It is this type of "lifting up" that improves our community, and eventually our world. This is sort of the same thing that W.E.B DuBois was talking about in his theory of the "Talented Tenth". He was saying that the blacks need to elevate their most talented people and when ready, it was the responsibility of these talented people to go back into the community and spread their wealth of knowledge. Whereas, Booker T. Washington, from what Prof. Bailey said, wanted to start from the poorest people and from there the knowledge would work its way up. I asked myself, these are both viable solutions, and why not do both? Instead of disagreeing about the proper method they should have employed both simultaneously, and maybe they did i dont know. If you want to know more about Booker T. Washington check out this link: . I think that at this point in our lives it is difficult for us to give back, but at least we may offer our kindness and extend the hand of friendship to others around us, we will succeed if we work together. It never fails, comraderie.

nick

Older Still

I know this is late...but I wanted to riff off from what Adam was saying about the Nat Turner drawings. After looking at them i had to put them down, get a beer, and breathe; they are horrifically gruesome and to think that men have the capacity to not only allow this to happen but also participate in it perverts my perception of confidence in the human heart. Upon looking at them, I wondered to myself, I said, "Self, you don't believe in God or even a religion for that matter, but after this horrendous process these Africans are still able to find the courage to believe. How does that happen?" I have been pondering this question for a while now, and i don't understand it. I don't understand how, after all the killing and beating and crying, a person can believe in anything. My will would have been broken, but them i thought about why it would be broken; because i would have had nothing left. In this sense there is no where to go but up, and that may be one reason for why they believed. You must have some sort of hope that this nightmare will all end and i believe that is what they did. This promise of life after death in heaven, it is pretty enticing compared to their current position; however, it is still disheartening for one to read about a life that is worse than death.
Another thing that i found shocking and saddening was the youtube video that Theo provided for us. If you haven't watched it already i recommend that you do so immediately. I feel so naive when i see things like this. It is true that i know nothing of the black struggle in America, shit i grew up in a town with almost literally no other ethnicity than Caucasian. The first black person i have ever spoken to, is presently my girlfriend, and still i have not recognized these problems people are faced with everyday. I am oblivious and this video was an eye opener for me, to see children, children, picking out white babies and saying they wish they were white was heart-breaking. This class is definitely broadening my scope on the world, especially the social aspect of it. I hope that someday this changes permanently, i hope there is a reason for children to be proud of who they are. I wish this day was yesterday.

-nick-

Old Post

The story about the two children dying because their father was accused of a crime is terrible. The text states “In the case of the boy and girl above referred to, their father, named Hastings, was accused of the murder of a white man, his fourteen year old daughter and sixteen year old son were hanged and their bodies fined with bullets, then the father was also lynched.” This description totally reflects the ideology held by the southern common values and completely illegitimated the other offenses charged to the blacks; if they are able to do something like this, they are definitely capable of framing or wrongfully committing someone to a crime. It’s like Frederick Douglass said: “if American moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame, and indignation would rise to Heaven...”
This kind of attention is still around today. I saw Carlos Cortez speak yesterday about the way that media affects diversity, and he talked about the Amanda Lynch incident and how the public eye was shifted to focus on her harrowing escape from a prison camp. Little did any of us know but there were two other people with her a Black woman and also a Native American woman who died in the process, however, we were not aware of their story as the media focused on Ms. Lynch. I’m not going to blatantly point any fingers, but Jessica Lynch is white, and her story was the only one to be publically acknowledged... you may draw the conclusions.
I wanted to know the rest of the story about the imbecile lynching on page 79 of the Ida B. Wells-Barnett handout. It is extremely interesting to the extent upon which the judiciary power of Alabama thought it could go. So I looked it up feel free to check it out if you have a strong emotional foundation: http://books.google.com/books?id=ilJKjn9NNW0C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=Hamp+Biscoe&source=web&ots=STwVbkdLOW&sig=b14vcEdWh6tY_TT6yx79WpgqozA&hl=en&ei=lgyJSZ9qiKI1y8S81wc&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Angie's Questions for Monday

1. The Blues People reading implies that Africans become American when speaking about life in America in English. How relevant is language to American culture?
2. What does Baraka have to say about enslavement being different when the owner and the slave are from the same culture, and do you agree?
3. Baraka says that life in the colonies was different from other societies because the foundation of the society was economical. How relevant is money and wealth to the formation and evolution of the Negro and jazz music?
4. "Harlem" seems to be darker and angrier than other poems we have read. How does the speaker view "successful" blacks--blacks with wealth and/ or some authority?
5. Is the speaker in "Uncle Rufus" finding fault with his son, or does he applaud him for his rebellion?
6. "Madame Alpha Devine" profits from making blacks more white. What is the tone of the poem in relation to Devine's business?

"Imprint for Rio Grande"

I would also like to comment on Alice’s discussion leading. I think that the questions were very insightful, and I think the class as a whole—as always—did an excellent job of keeping the conversation moving. So well done! I found Jean Toomer’s poem “Imprint for Rio Grande” very interesting. It seems as though the first stanza captures so much about the African American movement. In saying, “to assert themselves as human beings (or to surrender themselves?),” Toomer seems to get at the issues we’ve been talking about with identity, defiance, pride, and surrender. I mentioned this in class, but it seems to me as though assimilating for the sake of “succeeding” within a culture would ultimately seem like failure to many. I find the above quote relevant because it’s the struggle between self-expression and assimilation. I’m not sure Toomer makes a judgment about which is ultimately the “right” choice, but I think that he just highlights the fact that there is a choice. I don’t even know where to start with the “Being” and “Exile” part of the poem. I know that there’s so much in there as far as meaning goes, but I can’t begin to unlock it without some help.

When reading Du Bois, I was really interested in his take on the double consciousness and I really liked Alice's questions about whether double conciousness is still prevalent today. I would have to say a definite yes. It really reminds me of when I was in high school. One of my closest friends at the time was black and she would constantly complain about other black girls coming up to her. They would always ask he why she was "acting white." My friend was really annoyed by this. This just makes me think why our society associates certain activities with races. Hence the "acting white" and "acting black." I just really find all of it very ridiculous. After all, we are all human.
So I would have to agree with Adam's take on the poem White Witch. When I first read it though, I thought of the reading about the lynchings. How many black men had been accused of raping white women. It seemed that the poem was a warning to other black men. Then when I thought about it more, I saw the white witch as representing the white community. The white community gets you to trust them and then they turn on you when you least expect it. This also reminded me of the article we read about how African Americans were only considered people when they broke the law.

February 11

First I feel compelled to comment on the plague that seems to be slowly decimating to St. Lawrence campus. It's apparently the flu, but my symptoms are not very flu-esque. I feel like I have been drinking sand, and the tapping of the keyboard makes my eyes water. A friend of mine went to the Health Center to get some medical aid and for his flu-like symptoms they prescribed him 'Tussin. I think I might need that extra kick from the Robo, but I'm not sure.
OK now that that's off my chest lets talk literature. I thought Alice's discussion questions and Professor Bailey's prompts facilitated a detailed and highly productive class. The parallel between White Witch and "On Lynchings" were chilling and eye opening. My own interpretation of the poem was that the witch represented white society--the epitome of freedom and privilege. The witch (white society) pretends to willingly invite blacks into their ranks and once blacks see or feel an opening white society crushes all dreams and hopes; throwing blacks back into a world of loss and pain.Nick brought up a play where a white woman seduces a black man on a train and than murders him in front of several people who do nothing to protect him.
The Du Bois section on double consciousness really hit home for me. I have found myself in different situations altering how I behave in order to fit in with the group around me. Professor Bailey told us that Dr. Bass once said to him that whenever she does something she always thinks about what it means to the black community. I identify as Black and Puerto Rican but I know I don't fit the a-typical persona; I always find myself acclimating minutely in order to feel like I fit in.

Aspects of Evans’s article on Spiritual Empowerment in Afro-American Literature reminded me of the discussion we had in Monday’s class about Black authenticity. Evans writes, “The danger which stalks this second moment in religious affirmation is that the Afro-American self may have receded before full definition had been reached, and that the subsequent influence of the group may prevent any significant challenges to the collective will” (8). Evans goes on to note that the Afro-American “community” has actually come to be represented by the “functionally regulative” Afro-American male community, thereby excluding Afro-American women from the progress made, to some degree.

What interests me is the position this divide puts any “movement” in. No matter how specific the title of a movement is (The Queer Hispanic Women of America’s Movement, for instance), there will always be several someones who occupy the outskirts of norm. Is it more beneficial for those in the background to regroup and form their own movement? Or does that harm the goal of whatever the marginalized have in common with the mainstream? In context, should there now be a Black Women’s Movement and a Black Men’s Movement? Should there be a separate Just Plain Black Movement? Obviously, there is a reason that the QHWAM broke away from the Women’s Movement; so when does the reason for secession become not obvious? Moreover, what effect does secession have on the goals in common?

The past few classes have shown me a lot about people’s prejudices, want for a good reputation, and how far people are willing to go to attain the reputations they desire. I have always wondered why groups of people who do not receive the respect they deserve do not form a larger group, and fight for their rights together, to climb the social latter. For example, in the past, why haven’t women and African Americans looked to each other as equals, and fought together for equal rights?

Today, after decades of trying to be equals in the work force, there are still several instances where both African Americans and women still do not receive equal pay to Caucasian men who hold the same job positions. It was not until a few of the most previous readings, that I understood why the two groups did not demand rights together.

There have been instances in the past where women would have relationships with African American men, but were afraid of being caught. Because they were so worried about their reputation, they would sometimes go as far as to say that they were raped. Several African American men were punished for crimes they did not commit, only because the women were afraid of their reputations being damaged.

In return, the African American community began to fear the white woman. James Weldon Johnson wrote a poem entitled “The White Witch” referring to white women, warning African American men to stay away from them, because although they may be beautiful, they were harm them.

I find the past relationship between the two groups of people sad. Both of these groups of people knew that they did not have as many rights as they should, but by condemning the other group, neither of them were able to help one another gain the rights they deserved, making it harder for each group of people to attain their rights.

Universal Blues

In completing the readings for today, I found the final two readings on the black experience in literary work and the blues extremely interesting as a context for much of what we have been reading. I was struck by these pieces because of my observation about how today’s readings seemed to have a different feel than the poetry we have read so far. This time, there seemed to be more reflection, more hidden meaning and exploration aside from the common slavery-era and freedom/reconstruction themes we had seen so far. There seemed to be a much greater social commentary here, especially in consideration of the black race as a whole and the challenges faced by its fledgling cultural identity.
It was interesting to read about how the common or vernacular experience of the African American community transformed into a written form of exploration, identity, community, and culture simultaneously, and also how some of the specific indicators of the time, like railroads, made this exploration of identity present in the music scene as well. A final thought, was in the last section of the blues piece in which the author mentions how train imagery and feeling of excitement, hope, freedom, and future that it portrayed to many in this vernacular group, was also a feeling that crossed racial lines as white European Americans were able to tie these feelings into their history as well. While this universitality of the emotion of blues begs important consideration of the values instilled in the genre’s representation of black history, culture and struggle, it also prompts the question of American identity and commonality as echoed by Claude McKay…

Alice's Discussion on Monday

Hi, all. I've given Alice's questions below in Roman type, and my own elaborations of them in italics. In particular, I'd very much like you to consider responses to these questions with reference to specific page numbers. Also, please do print this agenda out and bring it with you to class. See you tomorrow!

Discussion Questions

1) On page 11 in “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” Du Bois mentions what it feels like to live with this constant feeling of a double consciousness. “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” This article first appeared in 1903, do you think that the idea of having doubles in every aspect of life, as Du Bois says, is still as relevant today in the African American way life, or do you think seeing yourself through the eyes of others (constantly) is less prevalent?

Alice has homed in on an extremely famous and important passage from Du Bois here, one still widely discussed and debated today. Is double consciousness an impediment to one who experiences it, or a gift, or both? What does it mean to be able to and/or to be forced to mentally exchange places with other people? Do Joan Dayan's notions of haunting (from "Legal Slaves and Civil Bodies") resonate with this notion of a mobile subjectivity? Can groups other than African Americans experience double consciousness?


2) What do you think of James Weldon Johnson’s first poem “The Creation?” While it is very similar to the traditional Genesis creation tale, what differences strike you as odd, especially the part about creating man?

3) On page 12 Du Bois talks about poems and songs where African Americans talk of the promise land, and he equates it back to a place that is promised by God and even better than that promised to the Israelites. But he says that the promise land has not been found. What do you think about the past dreams of the promised land and how they have changed for people in Du Bois’ time (meaning around 1900s to current)?

Also, do you see any changes between images of the promised land we saw pre-emancipation and images of the promised land we see in Du Bois and Johnson?

4) What do you think of Du Bois’ ideas of the African American realizing that he must be himself in order to make a place for himself in this world? Assimilation has constantly been a tactic whites have used to try to convince other peoples it is the best way to put their foot in the door of their world, for example the Native Americans. But instead Du Bois says that African Americans want to start out without assimilating even if they must start at the bottom, which ultimately means starting from intense poverty.

What evidence have we seen in this class that whites have been interested in, or even willing to consider, black assimilation into white ranks? What’s the relationship between the idea of assimilation and the idea of separate but equal or Booker T Washington’s famous analogy, "separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand"?

5) Johnson’s poem “The White Witch” is on the face a poem about a white witch, but what or whom do you think the white witch really is, who does she stand for, and what did he mean when he says he has kissed the white witch?

How simple is this poem’s relationship to the lynching practices we read about in Wells-Barnett? Is Johnson talking literally and only about white sexual temptresses? How are we to interpret the femininity of this personification of the evils of the white hegemony?

On Being "Black Enough"

Our discussion of notions of ethnic authenticity made me think about Percival Everett's novel Erasure, so I wanted to share with you some very short excerpts from it--I'd be curious to hear what you think.

From Douglass, To Wells

Frederick Douglass, in his letter to Miss Ida B. Wells, wrote about the “horror, shame, and indignation” that everyone should be feeling if the American public wasn’t hardened by persistent crimes against colored people and if the “American church and clergy were only half Christianized.” This statement got me thinking, how does a society accept this kind of injustice? He raises a good point though, because it’s easy to get complacent when you hear about atrocities daily. I know, for me at least, when all I see on the news every night is murder in the cities and genocides in Africa, it gets to a point where I’m saying to myself, yeah, I know, but what else is happening in the world? It seems so cold when you think about it, but unless you’re experiencing these things first hand, I think it’s easy to forget how terrible things are. I think Douglass was recognizing this in his statement to Miss Wells; he was thanking her for portraying these horrible events in a brutally honest light.
I’m not going to go into the religion piece in depth right now, but I think it is worth noting the inconsistency in the preaching vs. practice of religious figures in all cultures across all times. I refuse to believe that any “God” wants his followers to practice any sort of hateful behavior, and I think that the self-proclaimed religious leaders and followers should learn to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I think that’s where Douglass’s frustrations arose from.

Yes, I really did enjoy Lawrence Hill as well. He answered so many questions about Someone Knows My Name and I really felt that I got to know him as a person sitting there. One thing that I thought was beautiful was when he was talking about the novel and how it was autobiographical in the sense that it was part of him. I never really though about the relationship between an author and their work that way, but I think it is very true. What you produce is really your ideas or how you want to express something. I thought a lot about the writing I have done. There really is so much of a person in their writing. I think about all the poems I wrote for Theo last semester. Basically each one had the mention of water in it. I didn't always intend to include water, but it happened a lot. And yes, I love water. Just kind of amazing how much you can really know about someone without knowing them at all. I also really enjoyed reading the excerpt from Black Berry, Sweet Juice. His style of writing just flowed really well and it was a lot of fun to read. Also, a very interesting topic and how he saw himself identifying as a black person. I find it interesting that people pay so much attention to skin color. I remember reading an article about people in Brazil and how they skin color really had nothing to do with what their nationality was. Most people who had darker skin actually had more heritage from European countries. I really liked the idea of not being able to tell what you really were. Just thought that was interesting...

I genuinely enjoyed going to Lawrence Hill’s Q&A session on Monday. He, obviously, answered a lot of questions about Someone Knows My Name in particular, but he also touched on the writing process, and answered more general questions about being the author of books. I found those answers to be really enlightening. I think no matter how many times someone reads a book, he or she will never get everything out of it that the author intended; maybe the same goes for poetry. But when an author offers to explain everything that went into the book (or poem), – the inspiration, the research, the challenges, the fun and disheartening parts, etc. – it brings the book into sharper focus. The reader might have speculated on all the “whys” of plot twists, character choices, settings, etc., but all along knowing he couldn’t presume to know exactly what was going on in the author’s mind. To use a cheesy analogy, it’s like giving glasses (or binoculars?) to a bird watcher with sub-par vision. I also imagine that the opportunity for an author to meet his readers must be enlightening in a similar way. It would mean meeting the people who not only found your book somehow, but took enough of an interest in what you wrote to go to that meeting. What I think I’m trying to articulate is the difference between writing an academic paper, when I know who my audience is, and writing a book, which sort of picks its own audience.

Stark Truth

In completing the readings for today’s class I was struck by Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s examination of the facts and stories surrounding the lynchings in the south during the post-civil war period. In combining the sheer number of lynchings and the inconsistency of the treatment based on color, I found the stories horrifying to read. It was also shocking to see the variety of “crimes” for which capital punishment could be applied, or to which hanging was the result of a mob that would settle for no less, including murder for alleged, attempted, or self-defense crimes, not to mention those with no proof whatsoever. I was also shocked by the lack of names in lines such as “three unknown negros” which only add to what appears to be a complete lack of law and order in the south, both formal and moral.

This reading was brought into context our second reading by Saidiya Hartman which while dense, helped to discuss the idea that in the post-war era the freedom of slaves was actually worth less than their lives during slavery. This idea, as manifested in the law, actions and words of society, is exemplified in the examples presented by Wells-Barnett where law if nothing else appears to turn its back on the now free slave community. The combination of these works brings to light the human suffering, immorality and violence that seems unimaginably fierce today; although perhaps it will help us to better look at some of the residues in law, speech and action that may still exist in our lives and society today.

On a final note, I wanted to mention how impressed I was with Lawrence Hill. Not only did I feel like he answered our questions very effectively, but he also brought to life the story of “Someone Knows My Name” in a way that helped to give more meaning to the discussions within it. What an awesome class!

Lawrence Hill

I was struck by Lawrence Hill— I am so glad that I was able to hear him speak. I have so much respect for him because he writes for a living, writes about subjects he has not experienced himself, and most of all, he was able to clarify ideas that I have heard before, but never understood.

Lawrence Hill addressed the idea of being the other—he spoke about how his daughters read one book in school about the struggle with race. They read this book four times. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great literary work, but it should by no means be the only book a person reads about race. He spoke about how he was raised in a mostly Caucasian neighborhood, and how hard it was to define himself growing up. Even though he could have called himself “mixed”, other people did not see him that way. He was forced to define himself as “black”, even though his mother is white.

The forced definition made me think of those bubbles people are forced to fill in during exams, I never really thought much about filling in a bubble to state the color of a person’s skin, until he pointed out that if he were to fill in a bubble, he would have denied half of his heritage. Because of the color of his skin, he is forced to claim that he is black. If he wanted to side with his mother’s side of the family tree, he would not be able to, because other people would refuse to believe that he is something different than the color of his skin.

On Lynching

This summer I took a course at Stamford UConn to make up for some credits that I needed. In this English course I read a short story about a woman who accused a black man of raping her. When I read the handout on Ida B. Wells-Barnett, I instantly was reminded of that story. I can’t remember what it was called or who it was by, which is very unfortunate, but I remember at the time being particularly drawn to the story for some reason. I think what interested me the most and brought out my fascination finally dawned on me when I read the section in the Ida handout, about the woman who accused a black man of raping her because she was afraid of bringing shame to her marriage since she had had a consensual relationship with the black man she accused of rape.
In the story I read this past summer the woman accusing the man of rape was described and purposefully kept, by the author, to seem mysterious. In the beginning the reader is told that she is upset because none of the men or boys look at her anymore, so the reader thinks she is upset that she has lost her charm and beauty. Then not much else is mentioned of the woman until we hear that she accuses the man of rape, and that the men in the town are getting together to go after the black man, and obviously lynch him. After the long scene leading up to and the eventual lynching, the reader is left wondering if the man ever raped her at all. There is no evidence that he did or didn’t, but it seems very likely that the woman was just bored or vain and wanted some sort of attention. However, when I read the excerpt from the Ida handout I began wondering if maybe, the woman from my earlier story was like the woman Ida talks about, if she had had a relationship with the black man and was ashamed and so accused him of rape. I think the main reason that story has stuck with me for so long, was because I always felt like I needed some type of explanation, that too many things were left uncertain for me. Was the woman just that cruel to accuse the man for no reason, or was there a relationship before and she now was ashamed, or is it possible (unlikely this was the case) that he raped her? I always wanted to know the answer, and felt I needed some justification for the man’s death, just how Ida felt and the reason for her writings on lynching.