Black Women, Resistance and the Coded Word, an Africological Examination
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LIBERATORY EXPRESSIONS: BLACK WOMEN, RESISTANCE AND THE CODED WORD, AN AFRICOLOGICAL EXAMINATION A Dissertation Submitted to The Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY AFRICOLOGY & AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES by Alice Lynn Nicholas May 2019 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, Advisory Chair, Africology and African American Studies Dr. Ama Mazama, Africology and African American Studies Dr. Christopher Johnson, Africology and African American Studies Dr. Kimani Nehusi, Africology and African American Studies Dr. Christel Temple, External Member, University of Pittsburgh © Copyright 2019 by Alice L. Nicholas All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Word coding can be traced to the ancient Kemetic practice of steganography (referring to hiding place or hidden message). Unless the reader is aware of the meaning, the Coded Word can often appear as just art. Afrocentric scholarship however, also incorporates the idea of functionality. Aesthetics, throughout African history, and to this day, serve a purpose. The beautiful quilts sewn by enslaved Black women served dual functions, as bed coverings and as symbols of resistance and liberation. The decorative wrought-ironwork found on gates and doors throughout the United States serves as a Sankofic reminder and protector. The highly coded language in the aesthetics of the Black Power/Black Arts Movement, shifted paradigms. Though the practice of word coding remains an active part of contemporary Black culture, there is a disconnection between the action and the aim (or function); a direct result of the destructive efforts of colonization. Today’s racially charged and oftentimes dangerous climate calls for a reexamination of word coding as a liberatory tool. I created the theory of the Coded Word to analyze three novels by Black women who are unique in their forms of word coding, just as they are characteristically distinct in their forms of expression. The findings for the three novels have resulted in the first three entries into the Glossary of the Coded Word, a resource to be used by Black people in resistance to oppression and in the struggle for liberation of all Black people. iii DEDICATION For my mother Deloris Lucy Nicholas who has risen in power to the realm of the ancestors. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As a believer, I first acknowledge and give thanks to the Most High. Secondly, I honor my ancestors on whose shoulders I stand, and in whose prayers I fly. To my Temple University Department of Africology and African American Studies family, I am grateful to have had this time and space with you, and I look forward to celebrating our tomorrows! TU – AfAm! To my professors, Dr. Sonja Peterson-Lewis, Dr. Jacqueline Wade, Dr. Regina Jennings, thank you for your wisdom and your careful crafting of this, and future, Africologists. A special thank you to my Chair and mentor, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, and to my dissertation committee, Dr. Ama Mazama, Dr. Christopher Johnson, Dr. Kimani Nehusi, and my external member, Dr. Christel Temple, what an honor it is to stand in your light. To my loved ones, heart-to-heart, I am beholden to you. Thank you for your love, your encouragement, your patience, your reminders to stay focused and balanced, and your home-cooked meals! It has taken my entire village to get me here, and for you, I am eternally grateful. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ iii DEDICATION ....................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ viii CHAPTERS: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 “The Most Important Person in the Underground Railroad” ..... 5 From Voice to Vision: Quilting the Coded Word ........................... 10 Definition of Terms ................................................................................ 16 Purpose of Study ...................................................................................... 17 Research Questions ............................................................................... 21 Barracoon: The Last Black “Cargo” ................................................. 22 Statement of Problem ........................................................................... 27 Rationale ................................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 2: METHODS: BLACK WOMEN’S LITERATURE .................. 33 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY: THE CODED WORD .............................. 35 The Theory of the Coded Word ........................................................... 37 African Retentions in the Coded Word ............................................ 38 Tenets of the Coded Word .................................................................... 43 Seven Components of Afrocentric Theory ....................................... 50 Limitations ............................................................................................... 54 vi CHAPTER 4: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ........................................... 55 CHAPTER 5: THE AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS ................................. 62 Zora Neale Hurston – Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) ................ 62 Toni Morrison - God Help the Child (2015) ..................................... 75 Toni Cade Bambara - Those Bones Are Not My Child (1999) ..... 89 Indicators of the Coded Word ............................................................ 101 Coded Sound .......................................................................................... 103 Coded Sight ............................................................................................ 107 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ........................................................................... 111 CHAPTER 7: GLOSSARY OF THE CODED WORD ................................... 112 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 118 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Figure 1. Andikra (Sankofa) Symbols ................................................. Page 14 2. Figure 2. Section of Wrought-Iron Fence ........................................... Page 15 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION All things that are, exist through speech. Without speech there is nothing … Whatever a person speaks, has reality to that person … This is the power of speech … No spoken word can be ignored. Once it is spoken, it exists. (Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change, 2003) For Black people, speech is more than the spoken word. “Speech” includes many forms of expression. Speech is a raised fist, or a knitted eyebrow. It is a “humph!” or a “hum.” It is a hairstyle or a pattern in a quilt. Any behavior, word and sound can be used to communicate ideas. Molefi Kete Asante (2010) notes, “We have often murdered insult with the sharp glance of our eyes, the sucking of our teeth, and the bold akimbo” (p. 237). I posit, that these communication patterns have been used to share ideologies of resistance between Black people that lead to liberatory imaginations. There are times in African history when speaking was dangerous for Black people. Even the playing of the drum (a messenger) was outlawed because of the power of its “speech.”1 To prevent communication between enslaved Black people, enslavers outlawed the drum, reading and writing, all ancient African traditions2. To ensure unfettered communication, Black fwomen practiced covert 1 See Asante, Molefi Kete. (2003). The Afrocentric Idea. Speaking includes the drum, the written word and “a vocal-expressive modality [which] dominates all communication culture” (p. 71). See also, Welsh- Asante, Kariamu. (1993) The African Aesthetic: Keeper of the Traditions. Westport: Greenwoord Press. “[T]he fact that Africans were prohibited from using the drums during the Enslavement meant that the percussive element of the aesthetic had to be expressed in other material ways” (p. 54). 2 According to Kimani Nehusi (2001), “The myth that Afrikans do not possess a scribal tradition is exploited by the very fact of Medew Netjer, which is the first language ever to be written in this world and was in constant use for over 3,000 years, constituting the longest written tradition ever” (pp. 10-11). 1 (though, not necessarily concealed) forms of expression. Coding the word became a common practice, and the word itself became fluid. Word coding, the ancient practice of transferring ideas into tangible communication,3 was refined during enslavement when it was especially useful for resistance and liberation efforts. Trinidadian writer and playwright, M. Nourbese Philip (1989), in her poem, “Discourse on the Logic of Language,” laments the loss of her mother- tongue (her maternal language and cultural connection to Africa)4, and resents the forced adoption of a new, English tongue; “English is my mother tongue, a mother tongue is not a foreign, lang lang lang language, languish anguish, a foreign anguish” (p. 30). The English language, Philip argues, is in reality, a “father-tongue” (a reference to racism and patriarchy). She asserts, “I have no mother tongue, no mother to tongue, no tongue to mother