An Analysis of Black Lives Matter Literature by Kayli Bland a Thesis Submitted to Sonoma

“Blackness is Not Probable Cause”: An Analysis of Black Lives Matter Literature by Kayli Bland A thesis submitted to Sonoma State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English Committee Members: Dr. Kim Hester-Williams Dr. Megan McIntyre May 18, 2021 Copyright 2021 By Kayli Bland ii Authorization for Reproduction of Master’s Thesis I grant permission for the print or digital reproduction of this thesis [project] in its entirety, without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship. Date: ____5/14/2021____________ Name: _______ iii “Blackness is Not Probable Cause”: An Analysis of Black Lives Matter Literature Thesis by Kayli Bland ABSTRACT: The recent death of George Floyd sparked civil unrest and protest in every major city across the United States as well as internationally. The American people called for justice, not only for Floyd but for all the Black men, women, and children wrongfully executed by police. Beginning with the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement has become a fundamental part of our history and public discourse which has forced us to talk about and face racism. This project seeks to understand how the murder of George Floyd reveals how systemic racism functions in America and is, importantly, understood, articulated, and resisted in Black vernacular discourse and contemporary Black literary texts. My thesis will focus strictly on Black authors, such as Kiese Laymon and Claudia Rankine, with references to Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, Vershawn Ashanti Young, and Frank B. Wilderson III. The premise of this project is to illustrate the importance of the emphasis on the Black experience in articulating and navigating the theoretical, cultural, intellectual, and literary terrain, including the space of the University, and ideas such as Afropessimism, anti-Blackness, and code-switching directly relevant to and constitutive of the larger field of Black Lives Matter discourse. Namely, the Black Lives Matter movement is at the center of my research that focuses primarily on contemporary Black authors and will hopefully shed light on an emergent genre of literature that is challenging the progress that has been made toward a so-called post-racial society. The goal of this thesis will be to show how these authors are in conversation with the Black Lives Matter Movement and to discuss the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness on the Black experience in order to progress towards a truly antiracist future. MA Program: English Sonoma State University May 18, 2021 iv Acknowledgments To Dr. Kim Hester Williams, thank you for taking my messy, broad idea and helping me turn it into something I can be truly proud of. Your flexibility and understanding during this truly historic year were so crucial to my mental health while writing. Your unmatched wealth of knowledge allowed me to put myself into conversation with incredible authors that I may never have known without your guidance. To Dr. Megan McIntrye, thank you for introducing me to antitracist pedagogy and inspiring parts of this project. Your kindness and understanding allowed me to be kind to myself during the editing process. Thank you for always highlighting my strengths and gently encouraging improvements where they were needed. You are an inspiration to future teachers and you have given me real hope for future students as we continue to fight for change. To my fiancé whose unconditional love and support made an impossible task possible. Thank you for carrying the load of our household and providing for our family. You gave me the strength, freedom, and care I needed to take on such a tremendous task. Thank you for always reminding me of what I am capable of and why I am here. To my mother, who has always loved me even when I felt genuinely unlovable. You were the first woman to teach me what the true strength of a woman looks like. You have faced more adversity than most and have remained humble and full of compassion. You are and always will be my best friend and my truest confidante. None of my achievements would have been possible without you. Thank you for always pushing me to be the best version of myself. v Table of Contents Chapter: Page Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 I. The Importance of anti-Black Anecdotes……………………………………………..9 II. Dismantling the Master’s House without the Master’s Tools……………………….25 III. The Danger of The White Imaginary and Colorblind Thinking: How Microaggressions in White Spaces Perpetuate White Hierarchical Thinking…......40 IV. The White Imaginary Continued: How Microaggression and Language Fuel National anti-Black Violence…………………………………………………………..58 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………....72 vi 1 Introduction: I was sixteen years old and a high school Junior the year that Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by self-appointed neighborhood crime watcher, George Zimmerman. Although Martin was only a year older than me and was like any other teenage boy at my high school I did not understand the situation at the time. It never occurred to me that he could have been someone I knew and cared about. Growing up I had faced my share of adversity; my parents are recovering addicts/ alcoholics and I spent a lot of my childhood in and out of foster homes and shelters. My experience, while not ideal, helped me to grasp a better understanding of the world and my privilege. While only about 3% of former foster youth will graduate from a 4-year university, I find myself wondering what percentage of those students are White. It was not until my first semester at Sonoma State that I began to fully understand my White privilege when I took my first American Multicultural Studies class. When the professor began explaining White privilege I listened intently and took notes. Another White student interrupted the professor and demanded a better explanation because she felt that she had never experienced this privilege. The professor was calm and let her explain that she had grown up poor and nothing in life had ever been handed to her so how could he claim that she was privileged. My first thought at this interaction was that I too had grown up poor along with many other challenges but I would never challenge a professor in the middle of a lecture. He explained that while she may have faced adversity in her life, her Whiteness was not one of the things that had made her life more challenging. The girl did not seem to fully understand and still seemed upset but his 2 explanation had fully grasped me—I started to see my life differently and wanted to learn more. I learned a lot over the next four years of undergrad and racism appeared as the main theme in almost all of my classes. I loved to learn so much that I came back for my Master’s Degree and when it came time to choose a topic for my thesis I was completely stumped. However, in the summer before my second year of Grad School George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis. When the news hit I thought back to my high school self and Trayvon Martin; I thought about how much I had grown and also about how many Black men and women had been killed by police officers since then. At this moment I knew I wanted to focus my thesis strictly on Black authors so I began reading and researching with the help of my advisors. The main chapters of this thesis focus primarily on the work of Kiese Laymon and Claudia Rankine with supporting evidence from James Baldwin, Vershawn Ashanti Young, Ibram X. Kendi, Christina Sharpe, Frantz Fanon, and Frank B. Wilderson III. First, I examine Laymon’s collection of essays How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America where he recalls personal anecdotes about community, trauma, and life as a Black man from Mississippi. In my second chapter, I discuss Laymon’s memoir, Heavy where he recounts some of the most impactful moments of his life. The bulk of his memoir speaks to his relationship with his mother and issues with his weight, however, he acknowledges that his Blackness is at the forefront of all of these impactful moments. In these two chapters, I explain how Laymon’s work functions to expose the normalcy of anti-Blackness. My third chapter explores Claudia Rankine’s most recent book, Just Us, which provides accounts of racial microaggressions that she and others experience. In 3 this chapter, I offer insight on the White imaginary and how it is synonymous with White fear and anxiety, also called Negrophobia. Lastly, I focus my research on Rankine’s lyric Citizen where she continues to share personal experiences of racial microaggression. I analyze the microaggressions that stem from anti-Blackness in her lyric and further discuss how she exposes the danger of the White imaginary. Each chapter argues how and why these authors fit into the emergent genre of Black Lives Matter Literature. The purpose of this project is to identify how Black language and literature inform the Black Lives Matter Movement. While Black Lives Matter Literature has not been universally recognized as a literary genre yet, Julia Lajta-Novak stated in an interview with the Austrian Academy of Science: “At the moment, there are BLM reading lists in many newspapers, from the New York Times to the Guardian to Vogue, that show what great literature is out there; literature that until now has received far too little attention. For the first time, Black authors have topped the paperback charts in the UK.

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