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How White Constructs Reinforce the Extended Black Family.Pdf P a g e | 1 4 We Reap What You Sow: How White Constructs Reinforce the Extended Black Family Tara M. Moore In 1965, Daniel Moynihan defined the African American family dynamic as pathological and urged public policy to focus on repairing it (32). Although he meant no harm, harm was done. For decades afterwards, the African American family was regarded as “delinquent” and “pathological” due to its presumed matriarchal dominance and lack of nuclear structure. It was blamed as the main reason African Americans failed to achieve socio-economic success while ignoring the ingrained racism of social institutions (e.g. the media, the criminal justice system, the education system, etc.). When African Americans are not the narrators of our own story we run the risk of being mislabeled and misunderstood. However, the technology of modernity has given Black voices an invaluable and affordable platform to counter this narrative: the internet. Prior to the internet’s expansion and the subsequent rise of social media, the telling of African American family narratives was limited to those with means – generally Whites or (upper) middle-class African Americans – limiting the depth, focus, and overall complexity of the portrayal of African American families and the external factors that affect them. But because videos can be uploaded for and by almost anyone, counter-narratives are being presented that remind society that racism persists in people and within the social constructs that govern our everyday lives. For example, the 2012 murder of an innocent Black 17-year-old boy, Trayvon Martin, received massive media attention as the twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter went viral and later became an activist movement. His death and the 2013 acquittal of his assailant, George Zimmerman, are relevant to the conversation of African American families for two reasons: (1) it brought awareness to the public that the criminal justice system is still prejudice against people P a g e | 2 of color and favors Whites (2) it denied a family justice. What sort of psychological toll does that take on the family unit? Jesmyn Ward’s fictional novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing suggests an answer to this question. Ward reflected in an interview that part of what motivated her to situate her writing in her home, Mississippi, was the fact that others discounted the humanity and complexity of her characters and those that inspired her characters (Elliot 2017). And having lost a brother herself to a drunk driver who was never charged she was no stranger to grief; all these things – her experiences, stories she knew, things she researched – informed the conception of her award- winning novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. The novel is a mystical story that follows an African American family as they navigate the intersections of love, loss, class, and race from the perspective of three generations. Utilizing the text, this chapter will explore the potential transmission of trauma caused by the loss of a loved one. As well as the consequential impact that has on internal family relations as attachment relationships are tested, and in some cases impaired. EXPLANATION OF SELECTED GENRE AND MATERIAL Sing, Unburied, Sing is a fictional multi-narrative about an intergenerational household in Mississippi that is haunted by the ghosts of loved ones. The story is told by three protagonists but for the purposes of this essay the primary focus will be on Jojo, a 13-year-old biracial teenager, and Leonie, his Black mother. The household consists of Mam (the grandmother who is dying of cancer), Pop (the grandfather), Leonie, Jojo, Kayla (Jojo’s 3-year-old sister), and used to include Michael, Leonie’s White boyfriend and father to Jojo and Kayla. The story follows Leonie, Misty (Leonie’s friend), Jojo, and Kayla on their road trip to pick up Michael from prison, relying on Eastern literary chronotope (i.e. non-linear storytelling) to explain the current family P a g e | 3 dynamic via flashbacks. In the case of Leonie and her family, the source of her trauma is the murder of her brother, Given, by Michael’s cousin while they Leonie, Given, and Michael were in high school. With the help of Michael’s father, a former sheriff, and lack of effort on the part of the district attorney (DA), the murder was labeled a hunting accident (Ward 2017:50). The selection of fiction as a genre to examine a portrayal of African American families was strategic because of its ability to provide counter-narratives, the part it plays in developing the audiences’ sense of self, and the world in which they inhabit. After all, literature is one of the few mediums that is incorporated into the education system as early as primary school, and it is used during those formative years, oftentimes what students read shapes their understanding of concepts like the Black family. In particular, what makes fiction stand apart from other forms of literature is the creative freedom that allots for narration from more than one character, showcasing humanity and complexity that readers may otherwise be unaware of. This particular novel was chosen because the generational perspectivity, the perspective of different family generations, serves as a vessel for viewing inherited trauma: how it is passed on and the strain it places on the parent-child relationship thus requiring the support of extended family members. Throughout the novel, the audience is exposed to the lingering trauma of losing Given that interferes with Leonie’s ability to be a sensitive, responsive mother to her children, ruining the parent-child relationship until neither child looks to her for emotional support. Instead, Jojo turns to his grandparents for security and Kayla relies on Jojo and the grandparents for comfort. In fact, Jojo recalls the exact moment he stopped calling her “mama” and started referring to her as “Leonie” (Ward 2017:16). In addition to this, the polyperspectivity grants each protagonist agency with which the audience can get into the character’s minds and understand the motives and reasoning behind P a g e | 4 their emotions and responses to the same situation – humanizing the characters without the author playing favorites. Although, the audience may not empathize with the neglectful, verbally abusive mother, they can understand her as a person and not just a strung-out junkie. This is the beauty of literature: it serves as a portal into the minds of others – contradicting prior held beliefs, encouraging empathy/sympathy, and bridging gaps. In this way, the genre of fiction and Sing, Unburied, Sing help audiences understand the intricacies of African American families. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS Two theoretical frameworks will be applied to evaluate the imposition, transmission, and effects of trauma on the family dynamic: critical race theory (CTR) and attachment theory (AT). CRT is a collection of ideas concerning race inequality that will be utilized to center the conversation around Given’s death and analyze how external forces (e.g. racism and the justice system) intrude upon the family dynamic by creating trauma (Bradbury 2014:18). Next, AT, which focuses on long-term relationships and bonds such as those between the parent-child and romantic partners, will be used to evaluate how the loss of Given negatively affected Leonie and her attachment style to others, resulting in specific family dynamics (Cherry 2019). CRITICAL RACE THEORY There are four major tenets of CRT: (1) race is endemic, (2) race is a social construct, (3) racial and ethnic identities are decided by a group and therefore dynamic, and (4) anyone can adhere to hegemony and perpetuate racialized social systems (Burton et al. 2010; 422). “These major tenets are utilized as a means for understanding and explaining the intersection between race, social policy, and the structure/functioning of [African American] families” (Lemmons and Johnson 2019:88). By viewing the circumstance of Given’s death through a CRT lens the overall P a g e | 5 prejudice against Blacks and latent racial bias in the criminal justice system becomes even more noticeable. For instance, despite Pop’s attempts to warn Given that racism still exists, he ignored him and remarked that his football teammates were like brothers to him so it was safe to socialize with his White teammates (Ward 2017:47-48). Given agreed to go hunting with Michael’s cousin and some other White teammates and bet Michael’s cousin that he could kill a buck with a bow and arrow before he could kill anything with a gun. That morning the White boys “woke up drinking beer with orange juice because they figured Given would lose” and when Given won he “shot the n***** for beating him” (Ward 2017:49). When it happened, his so-called friends threw down their beer cans and ran, leaving him alone to bleed out in the woods. The blatant disregard for his life is a clear indication that they valued him as less than human, a chilling reminder of tenet one: society itself is still imbued with race and racial inequality whether or not it is recognized. In court, none of Given’s friends testified against the defense and the DA agreed to a plea deal of three years in prison and two years on probation (Ward 2017:50). In Mississippi, the penalty for manslaughter is up to one year in the county jail, two-twenty years imprisonment, and at least a $500 fine (Find Law 2016). Despite the fact that Michael’s cousin was in his thirties at this time and therefore a more experienced hunter which should have warranted him a longer sentence, he received a light sentence and never apologized to the family because at the end of the day it wasn’t a White boy that was killed.
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