MCNEIL, NICENE, M.A., DECEMBER 2020 English
REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK AUTONOMY IN SELECTED WORKS OF BLACK FICTION (90 pp.)
Thesis Advisor: Babacar M’Baye
This thesis explores the ways in which Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Lorraine
Hansberry represent Black autonomous living in their texts. I begin by breaking down the theoretical leanings behind the assertions made in this thesis, starting with Marcus Garvey,
W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington. I move on to a discussion of Black Feminist
Thought by Patricia Hill Collin, wherein I use her tenets to qualify Their Eyes Were Watching
God, The Bluest Eye, and A Raisin In The Sun as being works that fit solidly into the Black feminist thought tradition. After identifying scholars who have done cornerstone work in this field and establishing the theory behind the thesis, I dive into a discussion of the texts. In the first chapter, I focus on Hurston’s piece, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In it I use the text as well as pieces of non-fiction also written by Hurston to breakdown her thinking on integration and Black autonomy. The subsequent chapter centers Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970). Here, I pay attention to the way Morrison concentrates on the interiority of Black women and girls by allowing their voices to stand as the focal point of her piece. Morrison’s piece allows readers to understand the “American Dream” as something that was meant, primarily for white folks and I use the scholarship of Ta-Nehisi Coates to undergird these assertions. Finally, the Hansberry chapter examines A Raisin In The Sun (1958). This chapter directly deals with the issue of segregation and autonomous living. By using the text as well as secondary and outside scholarly resources, I show the ways and reasons behind Hansberry offering viewpoints that seem to be contrary to the crux and conclusion of the play.
REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK AUTONOMY IN SELECTED WORKS OF BLACK
LITERATURE
A thesis submitted
to Kent State University in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Arts
by
Nicene R. McNeil
December 2020
© Copyright
All rights reserved
Except for previously published materials
Thesis written by
Nicene Rebecca McNeil
B.A., The University of Akron, 2016
M.A., Kent State University, 2020
Approved by
______, Advisor
Babacar M’Baye
______, Chair, Department of English
Babacar M’Baye
______, Interim Dean, Arts and Sciences
Mandy Munro-Stasiuk
TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………...iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………v
CHAPTERS
I. Introduction: Understanding the Theoretical Underpinnings of Autonomous Black
Living…………………………………………………………………………….1
II. Segregating Ourselves: Zora Neale Hurston’s Take on Black Autonomy As Seen
In Their Eyes Were Watching God and Selected Works………………………...13
a. Becoming “Raced” in the Everglades……………………………………….19
b. Hurston v. Brown v. Board…………………………………………………..23
III. Blackness and White Intrusion in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye……………..29
a. The Danger of Disinterested Violence……………………………………….31
b. White Intrusion on Black Spaces…………………………………………….33
c. “Where’s Polly”?…………………………………………………………….40
d. Sins of the Father...... 45
IV. Privileging an Unattainable Dream: Black Autonomous Living in Lorraine
Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun………………………………………………..50
a. An Unavoidable Problem: Gender and Autonomy in A Raisin In The Sun…51
b. Challenging Assimilationist Values: Beneatha………………………………57
c. The Problem: Socioeconomic Considerations……………………………….60
V. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….77
VI. Works Cited……………………………………………………………………...81
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I must extend my deepest gratitude to my thesis advisor, Professor
Babacar M’Baye. Thank you for believing in me and being so understanding when it came to time. You reassured me when I was on the right path and offered constructive criticism when I was not, and for that I am grateful. Without your encouragement this thesis would never have come to fruition. To my thesis committee, Professor Tammy Clewell, and Professor Wesley
Raabe, thank you both for agreeing to be on my team! I learned so much in all of your respective classes that it is difficult to quantify it. Dr. Clewell you taught me how to read, appreciate, and dissect a graphic novel (even newspaper comics will never be the same), and Dr. Raabe you taught me how to manage my time at a graduate level and how to pursue my goals in a serious way. I am forever grateful.
I would not be where I am without the help of Dr. Philathia Bolton from The University of Akron. Without you I never would have had the courage to pursue my dreams because I never would have known they were possible! Your Black Literature class opened doors for me that I didn’t know were there. All three of the pieces that I focused on in this thesis were first put into my hands by you. Thank you for trail blazing that path.
I thank my fellow Kent State graduate students, past and present; you all have made this journey a little bit easier and for that I am thankful. To David Kohl, especially, the laughs we shared during the difficult times of this MA program made it all worth it, and my thesis would not be the same had it not been for your feedback during the process. To my friends, especially
Faith and Réyna, thank you for encouraging me through this whole journey, you’ll never know how much it means to me.
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Finally, I would like to thank my family. To my parents—it’s been a wild ride but we made it! Thanks for the undying support and the unconditional love. To my sisters, Nicole and
Lauren, thank you both believing in me so deeply and for the encouragement you have given me.
Last, but not least, Trinity. You have literally been there for every high and low of my thesis writing, and even when I felt like maybe, just maybe, I could give up you let me know that that was not an option. You’ve been my biggest cheerleader and this thesis would have never made it off the ground if it wasn’t for you. This acknowledgment isn’t nearly enough but, thank you all!!
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Introduction: Understanding the Theoretical Underpinnings of Autonomous Black Living
Just about as long as racism has existed within the fabric of the United States there has been literature to accompany it that has served as a companion to history. When large social changes have occurred there is, undoubtedly, a writer who will take in the movements of the moment and turn them into art. The same is true of the post-reconstruction era, Jim Crow segregation era, and the Civil Rights era. Beyond the art itself lies the scholars who have carried on a conversation surrounding the art and its significance to the culture and beyond. At the center of many of these conversations around race is the underlying search for autonomy and ultimately the ascertaining of the American Dream.
This thesis explores representations of Black autonomy as it is presented by specific pieces of Black literature. These pieces of literature being Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were
Watching God (1937), Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), and Lorraine Hansberry’s A
Raisin In The Sun (1958). This thesis seeks not only to display what it is that the authors were trying to make of what happens when there are circumstances that produce instances of racial exclusivity but also the consequences of what happens when whiteness is imposed upon these spaces. Within these texts, the individual authors’ idea of autonomy and the American Dream are found, and though the supposed methods of attaining this dream may have been different for each, they are all reaching for similar goals of autonomy. The problem that I have identified and that is being addressed by my thesis is the expectation of Black assimilation into white American culture by way of integration and, therefore, integration being hailed as the solution to racism starting at the residential level. The secondary problem, then, is the longstanding expectation that
1 in order to receive the advantages of full personhood, Black people must be consumed into white society. Along with this expectation comes the ironic reluctance of whites to allow Blacks to participate in their society fully while simultaneously interrupting instances of Black autonomy.
Amidst the vast sea of scholarship that focuses on the fight for autonomy that Black folks have carried on in the United States and elsewhere, is that which was produced by W.E.B. Du
Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century set the tone and stood as the basis from which other scholarship flowed. More often than not the conversation surrounding the works of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois centers their theoretical differences and emphasizes the major points of diversion in their philosophies, however, they ultimately were aiming towards the same goal and a thorough study of their ideals and opinions reveals this.
In The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois establishes himself as an integrationist, which can best be described as one who aims to combine the minority and the majority as seamlessly as possible. In his piece, he details his experiences interacting with Black folks from the south while also giving readers a look into his own life. It is here that he not only detailed his ideas about who the ruling class should be among Black folks (the Talented Tenth) but also where he introduced the concept of double consciousness and “the veil’ which set the foundations for modern conversations about race and how it is experienced and internalized. Du
Bois’ concept of double consciousness is bred at the residential boundaries forged between Black and white worlds, which, in a literal sense, is referring to Blacks and whites living in close proximity to each other but socially separate. Being that it was published in 1903 during the
Reconstruction Era, Souls includes a comprehensive look at the steps Du Bois’ believed Black folks should take to progress in a post-slavery United States. Writing directly on this topic he
2 says that a “people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems” (14). In other words, Du Bois is advocating for Black people to be allotted isolated space to collect themselves without white intrusion for the purpose of racial upward mobility-not in perpetuality like Marcus Garvey.
This work is integral because of the way Du Bois broke down and theorized the sensation of being “othered.” In each of the three works of literature that are the focus of this thesis, the theme of othering can be found. It is evident that the authors, being drawn to the “other” and perhaps identifying with the other, made the decision to center the other in the hopes of giving the other a voice that had not previously been heard. As history would have it, Du Bois was a personal friend of Lorraine Hansberry’s father and was a regular visitor to the household when
Hansberry was growing up. Her father and Du Bois were similar in many ways and after exploring her autobiography it is easy to see his influence in her works. In all three sections notice that there are instances when attention is to be drawn to the fact that the author was allowing her Black characters to exercise their autonomy by clearly stating their view of themselves while simultaneously acknowledging their awareness of being seen as the other by stating the way they are perceived by the outside world. Take Mrs. Breedlove’s recounting of her labor with Pecola, Zora Neale Hurston’s becoming a “fast brown” upon arriving in Jacksonville or Walter Younger’s feigned pandering to Mr. Linder. When these instances arise there should be an immediate recall to Du Bois in reader’s minds.
Marcus Garvey’s posthumously published, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey offers an extensive look into Garvey’s theoretical assertions and ideals. [Garvey was known as being a separatist which, unlike an integrationist, is someone who desires to be apart from the majority entirely.] It is safe to say that the basis for the overall theoretical framework for this
3 thesis stems from Garvey’s work. Traces of it are sprinkled throughout and are also echoed in contemporary scholars' work such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between The World And Me. The major ideals that constructed the foundation of Garvey’s work are self- determination, self- government, and self-reliance. Garvey’s ideas are at the center of this thesis’ theoretical underpinnings, and it should be noted that without his contribution modern-day frameworks for autonomous Black living would be severely lacking. Garvey’s impact cannot be overstated because Garveyism was “a response to the massive black migration of southerners to northern cities because it served to weld the notion of this movement to the concept of racial pride despite the conditions blacks confronted” (Chambers 161). In the first section of this thesis, I put
Hurston and Garvey in conversation with each other because traces of Garvey’s ideals can be found in Their Eyes and being that he was at one time Hurston’s boss— they were literally in conversation with each other over how the issue of race was to be dealt with.
Booker T. Washington, whose ideals are often pitted against those of Du Bois can best be described as an assimilationist. Meaning this: Washington’s ideologies centered around Blacks working within the social structures in place and proving their worth to get ahead without ruffling white feathers. In direct conflict with Garvey’s ideals, Washington argued that barring the “cruelty and moral wrong of slavery” Blacks in the United States were far better off than
Blacks anywhere else in the world (37). In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, Washington details his upbringing on a slave plantation, his experience getting an education, and the advent of Tuskegee University. The narrative is wrought with instances of Washington being assisted and encouraged by white folk to become a “credit” to his race. His experience was incredibly unique, almost to the point of being too good to be true, and I argue the following: because he was able to obtain and maintain autonomous living with the aid and direction of white folks, he
4 recommended that Blacks do the same. When recounting his time as a teacher and a student at
Hampton he recalled his frequent interactions with Native Americans and the gripes that they had against being forced to assimilate in their looks and social practices. However immediately after detailing this he states that regardless:
No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the
white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and
professes the white man’s religion. (81)
What is being described above is assimilation, and it is evident by his writings that on many levels Washington subscribed to this concept as well. However, based on his encounters with whites and how lauded he was by them one can assert that Washington’s overall experience was not that of a typical Black person during that time. Washington was beloved by white folk because he was viewed as an agent of assimilation. For example, because Tuskegee was a vocational school with Washington’s “cast down your bucket” ideology at its forefront, white folk didn’t have to fear that the school was producing a class of “uppity negroes” who were setting out to cause racial upset. Unlike Garveyites who “were not only self-reliant, but they also rejected the notion that whites had a duty to help Blacks in their struggle for equality” ( Grant
197), Washington cleaved to the belief that if only Blacks could show their worth that white folks would be more than accommodating when it came to assisting in Black advancement.
In an attempt to gather firsthand knowledge about what Blacks needed and the best way to equip Tuskegee to meet these needs, Washington spent a month visiting the south. It is interesting to note that after both making exploratory pilgrimages to the south to examine the lives of Black folk, Du Bois and Washington had significant commentary on education —though
5 the commentary itself varies wildly. Washington has been labeled an accommodationist, assimilationist, an Uncle Tom figure, and every manner of negative judgment throughout the years from Du Bois to modern scholars. These judgments were based on pieces such as his 1895
Atlanta Exposition speech wherein he introduced the “cast down your bucket” concept. While it may be easy to label Washington as a sell-out, it is more useful to take a nuanced look at his ideals. Though different in their approach, Du Bois, Garvey, and Washington were ultimately all striving for similar aims that were rooted in an autonomous existence for Black folks.
While tenets of Critical Race Theory have certainly been employed in this thesis, it primarily uses Black Feminist Theory as its central lens. Black Feminist Theory has always had an emphasis on self-definition which is a cornerstone characteristic of autonomy and something all three of the authors explored here and is exemplified in their works. Patricia Hill Collins begins her work on Black Feminist Thought (2009) by recounting the aims of an early Black feminist scholar, Maria Stewart, who “urged Black women to forge self-definitions of self- reliance and independence” (3). These characteristics are the foundation of autonomy. It is important to use this theoretical framework because “as a historically oppressed group, U.S.
Black women have produced social thought designed to oppose oppression” (Collins 11).
Because of this, white feminist theory simply would not be sufficient. Black women’s thought and knowledge-making is distinctly different than that of other oppressed groups and, therefore, must be valued as such (Collins 11). Collins has argued that within Black female scholars “have laid a vital analytical foundation for a distinctive standpoint on self, community, and society and, in doing so, created a multifaceted, African-American women’s intellectual tradition” (5).
Collins articulates this point masterfully when she contends that:
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Black women intellectuals are central to Black feminist thought for several reasons. First,
our experiences as African- American women provide us with a unique angle of vision
concerning Black womanhood unavailable to other groups, should we choose to embrace
it. It is more likely for Black women, as members of an oppressed group, to have critical
insights into the condition of our oppression than it is for those who live outside those
structures. (39)
This is important because as bell hooks notes in her groundbreaking feminist work, Feminist
Theory From Margin to Center (2015), when white women “dominate feminist discourse today
[they] rarely question whether or not their perspective on women’s reality is true to the lived experiences of women as a collective group” ( 3). For this reason, it is crucial that the works of
Hurston, Morrison, and Hansberry be read using the theoretical lens that is Black Feminist
Thought.
Collins cites residential segregation as a stimulating factor in Black women's critical social theory. She argues that “all-Black neighborhoods simultaneously provided a separate space where African-American women and men could use African-derived ideas to craft distinctive oppositional knowledges designed to resist racial oppression'' (12), and these conditions “encouraged the formation of a group-based, collective standpoint” (28). She argues that, like Zora Neale Hurston, Black “women intellectuals who were nurtured in social conditions of racial segregation strove to develop Black feminist thought as critical social theory” (15). Whereas racial segregation was designed to keep U.S. Blacks oppressed, it fostered a form of racial solidarity that flourished in all-Black neighborhoods (39). This reinforces the notion that primarily exclusive intraracial dwelling produces consciousness among Black folks that is crucial for the formation of autonomy. Residential segregation creates prime conditions
7 for the emergence of a collective knowledge. This thesis explores the ways in which Black female authors used Black feminist thought throughout their works to cultivate a shift toward autonomous Black living.
Collins has identified six attributes as being the core tenets of Black feminist thought. In order to qualify the texts and authors that I have included in this thesis, I will briefly outline the tenets and make connections to the texts when appropriate. The first tenet of Black feminist thought concerns the “recognition of how ties between experience and consciousness impact the everyday lives of Black women” (Johnson 236). This tenet emphasizes the “formation of a group-based, collective standpoint” (Collins 28) of Black women when creating knowledge while still acknowledging that there are offshoots within Black women’s collective standpoints.
Black women and the knowledge they produce are not homogenous. This is seen across the texts used in this thesis and helps us to understand the next tenet, which is recognizing that Black women offer diverse responses to oppression. According to Collins “individual Black women neither have identical experiences nor interpret experiences in a similar fashion” (30). This is evident throughout this thesis as the authors walk their audiences through their own customized routes to a collective Black autonomy. The third distinct tenet is that the work “stimulates Black women to resist” (Johnson 237) and by doing so fosters a call to activism by empowering Black women. Collins argues that “Black women’s path to a ‘feminist’ consciousness often occurs within” a social justice context with the underlying catalyst being Black nationalism, which she notes as being a phenomenon that usually only emerges in conjunction with racial segregation
(34). This is easily observed in Hurston’s Their Eyes, and in that chapter I go into detail about how her own segregated upbringing brought about Their Eyes.
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The fourth tenet covers “the ways in which Black women intellectuals engage in dialogue about our oppression” and the recognition that this is largely dependent on individual location and experience (Johnson 237). This tenet emphasizes the fact that Black feminist knowledge exists outside of academia. It encourages folks to not overlook the “everyday, taken for granted knowledge shared by Black women deriving from our everyday thought and action” (Johnson
237). In other words, this tenet assigns value to the informal knowledge that is and has been shared between Black women for ages. Wrapped up in this tenet is the call to engage in coalition building and remain non-exclusionary. Collins advocates for the inclusion of other groups while remaining strong in our autonomy when she argues that Black feminist thought “cannot flourish isolated from the experiences and ideas of other groups” (41). Immediately after her endorsement of coalition building Collins cites Black feminist scholar, Barbara Smith, to illustrate a point she made about the difference between autonomy and separatism:
Autonomy and separatism are fundamentally different. Whereas autonomy comes from a
position of strength, separatism comes from a position of fear. When we’re truly
autonomous we can deal with other kinds of people, a multiplicity of issues, and with
difference, because we have formed a solid base of strength. (xl)
Collins includes this portion of Smith’s book in order to articulate her point about not excluding different kinds of knowledges that are created by Black female scholars. In advocating for an expansion of ones thinking on canon, Collins also promotes the inclusion of those outside of the
Black community in a stance against separatism. In contrast, I argue that if separatism is rooted in fear, there is plenty reason to be afraid. Separatism is based in self-preservation and serves to aid in the production of Black consciousness. In the same way, much of Black knowledge blossoms, thrives and flourishes in the seclusion of segregation.
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The penultimate tenet centers around the fact that Black women’s activism and the body of knowledge they create is dynamic in nature and changes over time. This tenet can be observed in the varying response to racial oppression seen among Hurston, Morrison, and Hansberry. This is connected to the previous tenet because, traditionally, the historical repression of Black women’s knowledge has forced Black women to find different ways to explicate their knowledge. The final tenet is similar to the fourth in that it centers a recurring humanist vision and a concern for human solidarity. Collins takes this portion of the chapter to reemphasize the importance of taking a humanist approach to Black feminist thought. She contends that “in a context of intersecting oppressions, Black feminism requires searching for justice not only for
U.S. Black women but for everyone” (Collins 48). It is easily understandable why Collins and many other Black feminist scholars position the humanism angle as a prerequisite for Black feminist thought, however, I do not find separation to be in opposition to autonomy.
As is evident by the emphasis this thesis places on autonomy, self-reliance and self- definition play a significant role in the texts I use here. The ways in which Black women writers focus on self-definition is distinctive to their works. According to Collins, “self is not defined as the increased autonomy gained by separating oneself from others. Instead, self is found in the context of family and community” (124). This concept speaks back to African community- centered ideals as opposed to American individual-centered ideals. Wrapped up in the theme of self-definition is the fact that “Black women’s journeys often involve ‘the transformation of silence into language and action” (Collins 124). This can be observed in all three of the novels explored in this thesis. In The Bluest Eye, this is seen in Claudia’s narrating Pecola’s fate and
Pecola’s visiting Soaphead Church. In Their Eyes Janie exhibits this when leaving Killicks, engaging with her community on the porch, and talking to her friend, Phoebe. Finally, this is
10 seen in Raisin when Mama assertively buys the house in Clybourne Park. Collins said it best when she declares that “regardless of the actual content of Black women’s self-definitions, the act of insisting on Black female self-definition validates Black women’s power as human subjects” (126). Reclamation of one’s narrative is a source of power, subversion, and an ultimate act of autonomy.
The chapters of this thesis and the literature that is featured in them have been purposefully ordered. Though not chronological they follow a thought process that is easily followable and takes the reader through different stages of desire for, and acquisition of autonomy. Each chapter shows the author’s response to general racial oppression at the time as well as tracking de facto and de jure enforcement of residential segregation.
The first chapter focuses on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937). In it, I explore Hurston’s interpretation of the effect of the white gaze on predominantly
Black spaces. I also use this chapter to refute the notion that pockets of the US being successfully segregated is ahistorical. Using biographical information to reinforce her positioning and authority on the topic, Hurston lays the foundation for the experience of being “othered.” I also argue that the use of the vernacular in Their Eyes is exclusionary in and of itself. By this, I am referring to the way that the language Hurston uses feels familiar in the way that seems as if one is being wrapped in a warm embrace by someone they have not seen in a while. The vernacular in this text feels authentic and begs to be read aloud. It is distinctly Black, distinctly southern, and altogether beautiful as it acts as a calling card to Black folk. When rehashing the sordid history of race relations in the United States, Grace Hale asserts that whites used racial identity as a tool to exclude Blacks which, in turn, made space for Blacks to “view their racial identities as the source of their communion and strength,” which allowed them to create “modern
11 conceptions of the meaning of blackness” (22). This understanding can be applied to the use of the vernacular in Their Eyes.
The subsequent chapter centers Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970). In this section, I examine the ways Morrison displays the innards of the American dream and its intrinsic connection to whiteness. Here I introduce the scholarship of Ta-Nehisi Coates who further explores and defines the American dream and the ways in which Black folks have been excluded from such a dream but have consistently created their own version. Ultimately, this chapter is an examination of what Morrison believes can happen when whiteness penetrates Black spaces.
The third and final piece covered is Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun (1958).
Morrison and Coates’ discussion of “the dream” segues perfectly into Hansberry’s landmark play. The conversation in this chapter reflects the housing conflict that was taking place at the time and in some way clashed with the previous chapter : unlike Morrison and Hurston,
Hansberry’s “dream” includes close proximity to whiteness. This is not to say that this was the goal, however Hansberry’s strivings in Raisin point this way. In this section, we see the ways
Hansberry’s upbringing shaped her thinking on residential segregation and how her literature reflects this. I agree with Anne Cheney’s assertion that Raisin is Hansberry’s way of reconciling her Blackness with her upbringing. I also use this section to make solid connections between the literature and recurring themes in Black feminist theory such as the ways in which Black women have historically reclaimed some aspects of agency using food. In the same way that Du Bois,
Garvey, and Washington all had a similar goal, so did Hurston, Morrison, and Hansberry.
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Segregating Ourselves: Zora Neale Hurston’s Take on Black Autonomy As Seen In Their
Eyes Were Watching God and Selected Works
Situated within both the Modern as well as the Harlem Renaissance texts is Zora Neale
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God, shows readers the youth and adulthood of the main character, Janie, through her eyes. This text is a key piece in Harlem Renaissance literature but also fits nicely into the Modernist tradition because of the way it explores the interiority of Janie and the process of her coming of age as she moves away from tradition and begins to set out on her own. Key to understanding this text is recognizing the lack of actual interaction between Blacks and white in this novel while still acknowledging the ways Hurston tackles race. Largely this text is womanist in nature, but the portions that are dealing with race accomplish what Hurston set out to do. In fact, Hurston’s exclusion of an ongoing conversation of race corroborates the fact that race (and by default racism) rarely comes into play in primarily Black spaces. Scholars such as James Carr and
Nandinee Kutty make compelling arguments— complete with statistics and graphs— that chart the toll segregation in the United States has taken and continues to take on minorities. While many of the conclusions they come to might be numerically accurate, they neglect to take into consideration the social aspect of segregation. Other scholars, such as Leigh Anne Duck, have argued that while Hurston’s novel offers an exploratory look into the folkloric lives of Black people it contrasted what was actually going on in the lives of Blacks. Hurston’s autobiography, complete with an in-depth description of Eatonville refutes the notion that the all-Black space in
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Their Eyes was merely an exploratory backdrop. Their Eyes Were Watching God offers a pro- segregation look into Black life that complicates the merits of integration and privileges Black autonomy.
In order to have a productive conversation on this topic, it is important to first define what is meant by the term “Black autonomy”. Black autonomy can be defined as the phenomenon that occurs when Black people exercise self-reliance, independence (physical, financial, and otherwise), and work together to create a way of being that supports and sustains itself all while operating by and for Black people. Within a Black community, this autonomy would look like Black business and other forms of Black ownership as well as Black law enforcement and Black representation on all fronts. Many scholars look at a framework such as the above and regard it as ahistorical. This, however, is simply not true. One need not look further than Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or places such as Wilcox county, Alabama during Jim Crow segregation, to see examples of all Black communities that were, for the most part, thriving with little to no influence of whiteness and the rare interactions with whiteness ending in violence. Collins discusses the fact that even after Black migration to the north, residential segregation of the races persisted and resulted in a split that separated Black people from what was almost always “hostile white neighborhoods” (65). This is significant because
Eatonville, Florida, was one of these places. Not only is Their Eyes Were Watching God set in
Eatonville, but it is also the birthplace of Hurston as well as the place where she lived until she moved to Jacksonville at the age of thirteen. Eatonville and other cities like it are unique in the fact that not only were the populations majority Black but the local government was as well.
Hurston’s father was the mayor of Eatonville when she was a child, and the racial homogeneity of the city is reflected in her novel.
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Largely, the concept of a collective Black autonomy is rooted in the philosophical underpinnings of Marcus Garvey, whose theoretical lens centered around Black self- determination and independence. Though I argue throughout this chapter that Garvey and
Hurston had similar aims, it is crucial to note the places where their ideals diverged. Garvey and his wife Amy started a weekly newspaper for the UNIA called Negro World, which served as a political and literary outlet for many Harlem Renaissance artists, Hurston included. It is worth noting that Hurston openly disagreed with Garvey and went so far as to satirize him in a publication sent to Carl Van Vechten, entitled “The Emperor Effaces Himself.” In this piece,
Hurston mocks Garvey’s seemingly inflated sense of self and his hyper pro-Black ideologies.
Tony Martin argues that she, along with several Harlem Renaissance artists, were forced to
“ritualistically renounce their Garveyite connections” as a means of being integrated into mainstream (white) literary society" (76). This ended up being one of their main points of diversion— white sponsorship: like many Harlem Renaissance artists at the time, Zora Neale
Hurston had white patrons and white audiences that Hurston felt obligated to cater to in some ways. This directly clashes with Garvey’s ideal of Black independence and self-determination which certainly would not have included direct monetary funding from white folk and pandering to white audiences. Martin argues that “unlike her fellow Negro World poets, Hurston’s submissions were entirely lacking in any political content” (Martin 75); however, this is certainly not the case for most of Hurston’s texts outside of Negro World. Some have said that by giving a woman a voice in Negro World, Garvey “reflected a need to uphold black womanhood, and in doing so,...accepted ideals of black feminism within the context of rights for blacks” (Jackson
98). Because the theoretical lens being used throughout this thesis is Black Feminist Theory it is
15 useful to analyze the ways in which one of the major male voices being examined here interact with Black female points of view.
It is important to understand what was occurring in the United States during this time which prompted Harlem Renaissance writers and theorists to start conversations about Black autonomy. The period during Hurston’s childhood was known as the Reconstruction Era and was referred to as such because it came right after the end of slavery. During this time, the United
States was trying to figure out what to do with this group of people that they had formerly enslaved which resulted in an attempt to reconstruct the social stratum. This means that Black people were trying to find their place in society and were still largely located in the southern part of the United States where they were relegated to servile positions and interactions with white people often ended violently. By and large, “the formation of racialized districts substituted residential inequality for the status inequality of slavery” (Grigoryeva and Ruef 816).This left the
United States with pockets of segregation throughout the south where Black people were left to build their own communities, which is precisely what happened in Eatonville. In her autobiography, Hurston describes Eatonville as “a pure Negro town-charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all” and clarifies that “it was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of
Negroes in America” (1).
Throughout her book, Black Feminist Thought (2009), Patricia Hill Collins deliberates, with nuance, the differences between exclusion and segregation and inclusion and autonomy. For the most part, audiences can see that, overwhelmingly, Collins is not in support of segregation but instead favors an inclusive brand of autonomy. However, empirical evidence leads some to the conclusion that exclusion and segregation are the only paths to a true Black autonomous way
16 of living. Throughout this thesis, there are instances cited from various research sources that expound upon the benefits of racial exclusion. This being said, it can become difficult to reconcile these two opinions. How can the Black community gain or maintain autonomy if the source of the problem is being petitioned to also serve alongside Black people as part of the solution? In her chapter about safe spaces, Collins allows that “by definition [safe] spaces become less ‘safe’ if shared with those who [are] not Black” (121). In this instance, Collins is speaking of spaces that, historically, have been reserved for Black women to explore themselves and the community around them. However, at this moment in the text, she is making sure to add the caveat that these spaces were never meant to be permanent solutions to the problems facing
Black women and their overall purpose “aims for a more inclusionary, just society” (121). She observes that when Black women and other marginalized groups attempt to create spaces all their own they “run the risk of being labeled ‘separatist,’ ‘essentialist,’ and ‘antidemocratic’” (121).
This is certainly the same sentiment that can be applied to Black communities attempting autonomous living. This is something that must be considered when thinking about Hurston’s upbringing and leanings.
In her essay, “How It Feels To Be Colored Me,” Hurston describes her upbringing and, details her ignorance about race differentiation that persisted within her until she was thirteen years old. She explains that “white people differed from colored [people] to [her] only in that they rode through town and never lived there” (1030). She describes the day that she “became'' colored as being the moment when she arrived in Jacksonville for school and immediately went from being “Zora of Orange County [to] a little colored girl” (1031). She attributes this change to the sudden switch from an “exclusively colored town” (1031) to one that is infused with whiteness. She later goes on to declare that she “feels most colored when thrown against a sharp
17 white background” (1031), her point being that outside of these circumstances she feels simply like Zora. This is mirrored in Their Eyes when Janie is explaining to her friend that she “was wid dem white chillun so much till [she] didn’t know [she] wazn’t white” (8). Janie proceeds to explain that it wasn’t until she was shown a picture taken with her and her white friends that she realized she was Black. She was unable to recognize herself because up until that point she had believed herself to be the same color as the other children. In “How it Feels” Hurston communicates that she feels like herself sans the baggage of raced expectation and it is only when in contrast to whiteness does she have the felt experience of being othered.
Allow me to lay bare what it is I mean when I refer to the sensation of being “othered.”
Cheryl Harris has explained it in relation to the formation of an “American” identity by explaining that “[t]he amalgamation of various European strains into an American identity was facilitated by an oppositional definition of black as Other” (283).The most digestible way to understand “othering” is to recognize it as a binary wherein on one end of the spectrum are negatives and the other positives. Within the dichotomy exists the perception that without the negatives the positives either will not exist or would somehow be less positive. Collins eloquently describes this as such:
One part is not simply different from its counterpart; it is inherently opposed to its
“other.” Whites and Blacks, males and females, thought and feeling are not
complementary counterparts—they are fundamentally different entities related only
through their definition as opposites. (77)
As explicitly put by Collins, “as the Others, U.S. Blacks are assigned all of the negative characteristics opposite and inferior to those reserved for Whites” (97). When this is one’s understanding, it becomes imcredibly important to maintain the binary in order to provide
18
“ideological justification for race, gender, and class oppression” (Collins 77). This is why total
Black autonomy, which would, by default, include residential segregation has been and will always be completely rejected by dominant white culture. People will always need to be relegated to the position of “Other” in order to clarify the boundaries of moral and social order and offer a framework that perpetually allows white people to benefit from a power structure that favors them.
In her essay, Hurston points out that she is in no way “tragically colored” and has “no great sorrow dammed up in [her] soul” (1031). This sentiment is echoed in her letter to the
Orlando Sentinel denouncing the Brown v. Board decision wherein she states that she has “no sympathy or respect for the ‘tragedy of color’ school of thought” (1). In this instance, she is relaying the fact that those who subscribe to this school of thought may harbor a deep-seated desire to be in close proximity to whiteness in different ways that may have been considered social merit. Hurston believes that for many Blacks the association with white folks is meritorious whereas association with Black folk is not something to be desired. These distinctions are echoed in Garvey’s collection of philosophy and opinions when he says that he is
“not opposed to the white race, as charged by [his] enemies.” He goes on to say that he has “no time to hate anyone [because] all [his] time is devoted to the up-building and development of the
Negro race” (Garvey 13).
Becoming “Raced” in the Everglades
At the beginning of Their Eyes when Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, is explaining why she wants to marry Janie off to Mr. Killicks she tells her that throughout her life she has done all she could to ensure that Janie “wouldn’t have to stay in de white folks’ yard and tuck [her] head
19 befo’ other [white] chillun at school”(19). Hurston makes it a point to emphasize the importance of segregation to a Black child’s development. Hurston’s move from Eatonville to Jacksonville is mirrored in Their Eyes with Janie going from Eatonville to Jacksonville and to the Everglades and then back again. Readers are made to juxtapose Janie’s community in Eatonville against the community that she forms in the Everglades. In Eatonville there are front porches built for hours long gossip sessions and other exchanges between neighbors, and there are community gatherings and church services, — friends, family, and home all sans the influence of whiteness.
Transitioning to the Everglades, however, there is not necessarily an influx of whiteness per se- but there is Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner is someone who Janie starts to befriend in the Everglades and is described as follows:
Her nose was slightly pointed and she was proud. Her thin lips were an ever delight to her
eyes. Even her buttocks in bas relief were a source of pride. To her way of thinking all
these things set her aside from Negroes. That was why she sought out Janie to be friends
with. Janie’s coffee-and-cream complexion and her luxurious hair made Mrs. Turner
forgive her for wearing overalls like the other women who worked in the fields. She
didn’t forgive her for marrying a man as dark as Tea Cake, but she felt that she could
remedy that. (Hurston 140)
This description lets the audience know that in Mrs. Turner’s opinion, having the physical characteristics of white people, such as a slightly pointed nose, thin lips, and smaller buttocks, was something to be valued and lauded. She laments the fact that though she “ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips'' and “‘got white folks’ features in [the] face,” she is still forced to “be lumped in wid all de rest” (142). Though a description of Janie is given early on in the novel,
Mrs. Turner reminds readers just how fair-skinned and near to phenotypical whiteness she is. If a
20 character like Mrs. Turner associates with her then she must be nearing the brink of physical whiteness. Mrs. Turner is Hurston’s way of including the conversation about colorism into her novel. Up until this point in the text very little has been said about it. This is especially true in
Eatonville as the town is exclusively Black and therefore little is to be said about racial run-ins spurred by colorism. It can posited that since Mrs. Turner is Black there is not much to be theorized about the place of the white gaze in Their Eyes but I counter this notion by asserting that Mrs. Turner’s self-hatred is a learned behavior that grew out of exposure to whiteness being injected into primarily Black spaces. Take, for instance, the way that Mrs. Turner talks about other Black people. While having a conversation with Janie she says, “Ah don’t see how uh lady like Mis’ Woods can stand all them common niggers round her place all de time”. Here she is referring to the large number of Black people who tend to flock around Tea Cake and Janie’s place. She goes on to admit that she “ain’t useter ‘ssociatin’ wid black folks” (140). Mrs. Turner exhibits an intense need for assimilation into white society which is evident in her remark to
Janie that lighter-skinned Black folk “oughta class off” and her assumption that if there weren’t so many dark-skinned Black folks “de white folks would take [them] in wid dem” (141). In an interesting twist, these sentiments suggest a different type of segregation that perpetually values whiteness.
This makes perfect sense when considering her attitudes towards race and her firm hold on colorism. She exclaims to Janie that Tea Cake must have been incredibly wealthy to marry someone as fair-skinned as Janie and that she “couldn’t see [her]self married to no black man” which is followed up by her musing that they, being other fair-skinned Black women, “oughta lighten up de race” (140). After Janie asks Mrs. Turner why she is so against Black folks she responds by saying:
21
Who wants to be mixed up wid uh rusty black man, and uh black woman goin’ down the
street in all dem loud colors, and whoopin’ and hollerin’ and laughin’ over nothin’? Ah
don’t know. Don’t bring me no nigger doctor tuh hang over mah sick bed. Ah done had
six chillun—wuzn’t lucky enough tuh raise but dat one— and ain’t never had uh nigger
tuh even feel mah pulse. White doctors always gits mah money. Ah don’t go in no nigger
store tuh buy nothin’ neither. (Hurston 141-2)
This clearly illustrates Mrs. Turner’s deep disdain for Black folks that, by her own admission, festered up from rarely being around Black people and only associating with white folks or those who were close to it. It is evident by her language that she picked up her ideas about Blackness from white folks and that “by claiming that [she is] not like the rest, [she] reject[s] connections to other Black women and demand[s] special treatment for [herself] (Collins 103). Janie ruminates that to Mrs. Turner, ‘anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was
[and] therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself” (144). The way her thought process is described indicates that she views Blackness as a lower caste and privileged whiteness in all its forms and this is something that could have only been accomplished by an influx of whiteness into a Black space. I argue that
Mrs. Turner’s professed contempt for Blackness was spurred as a coping mechanism grounded in self-preservation. Cleaving to whiteness at the time this novel was written is something that could occasionally work in favor of the person doing the cleaving; however, Mrs. Turner seems to have adopted this coping mechanism as a way of life. Mrs. Turner along with Morrison’s characters Maureen Peal and Geraldine speak back to our earlier discussion of the dichotomy.
Collins asserts that:
22
Within the binary thinking that underpins intersecting oppressions, blue-eyed, blonde,
thin White women could not be considered beautiful without the Other— Black women
with African features of dark skin, broad noses, full lips, and kinky hair. (98)
Through the character of Mrs. Turner, Hurston offers audiences a simultaneous infusion of whiteness and anti-Blackness, all consolidated into one character.
Hurston v. Brown v. Board
In her article, Leigh Anne Duck asserts that “in suggesting the viability of ‘folk’ within modernity, Hurston devotes no attention to the fact that” in order for autonomous Black societies to be on the same economic playing field as white communities there would need to occur some kind of societal change or, in other words, whiteness is a necessary addition to the community
(266). She goes on to argue that in Their Eyes readers can see Hurston’s examination of what happens when “segregated southern African-American communities [are] increasingly influenced by the values of modern bourgeois ideology” but by this “logic, however, the novel displaces the enforced racial segregation of the South with the voluntary isolation of folkloric practice” (266). Duck’s central argument is that Hurston is not necessarily privileging “folk,” read Blackness, over bourgeoisie, read whiteness, but rather she is presenting Janie as the protagonist who is able to toe the line between both, privileging neither one nor the other. While one can certainly follow Duck’s conclusions with ease, there lies value in complicating that reading by arguing that, overall, Hurston does privilege the folkloric view of the world through her characterization of others in the novel as well as the description that the reader receives through the narrator that is sometimes filtered through the eyes of Janie. Duck cites the courtroom scene from Their Eyes where Janie is standing trial for the murder of Tea Cake amongst an all-white jury and Janie notes that “the black community is against her, ‘pelting her
23 with dirty thoughts’” (283). Duck asserts that this addition to the narrative undercuts any critique that Hurston may have been setting up about the unfair conditions of white supremacy that did not allow Black people to sit on a jury. In fact, exactly the opposite is happening. Hurston is showing the audience, both literally and figuratively, in this scene the negative aspects of white intrusion into Black life. The “crime” that was committed occurred between two Black folks in an area heavily populated by Black people, and yet the crime was being tried in front of an all- white jury. This scene is a literal forced intrusion of whiteness into Black matters.
Of course, there are many valid reasons why some are opposed to the idea of residential segregation being a positive thing. In their article, James Carr and Nandinee Kutty give a concise history of segregation, or Black isolation,-as they refer to it, and the havoc that it has traditionally reeked on Black communities. They assert that “housing discrimination artificially limits individuals from achieving their full potential as contributing members of society, stifles human achievement, creates unnecessary social program dependencies and breeds dysfunction”
(2). They go on to discuss Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the decision that facilities could remain separate but equal, by pointing out that “in reality, however, segregated facilities such as public schools, parks, swimming pools, cafe’s, etc. were systematically and significantly unequal in quality” (6). They proceed to provide a close examination of the government policies that were put in place to procure class and racial homogeneity which, in turn, kept Blacks and other minorities barred from the quality of life that whites got to experience.
While it has been documented that even though Blacks had their own facilities they were dilapidated, underfunded, outdated, and sometimes downright unusable, I counter that financial boundaries were the main reason for this and that the social implications of segregation outweigh the fiscal. Let me be clear, I am not asserting that children only having access to hand-me-down
24 schoolbooks or rundown facilities is a good thing, however, I am asking for consideration of the social aspects of segregation. By and large, the oppositions to segregation are centered around fiscal issues and the problems that are bred by them-rarely is there any consideration of the social implications. In contrast to these notions, Lorraine Hansberry lamented the existence of segregated schools in her autobiography recalling that:
“from its inception Betsy Ross had been earmarked as a ghetto school, a school
for black children and, therefore, one in which as many things as possible might
be safely thought of as ‘expendable’. That after all, is why it existed: not to give
education but to withhold as much as possible. (63)
This is interesting to put into conversation with the letter that Hurston wrote to the Orlando
Sentinel asserting her stance against the Brown v. Board decision wherein she begs the question
“how much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near them” she asserts that “the whole matter revolves around the self-respect of [her] people”( 1). After declaring her position she acknowledges that she is aware of the fact that after people catch wind of her position people will think her a race traitor who is pandering to the sensibilities of white folks but she proceeds to refute this throughout the remainder of her letter.
The first issue that she addressed is the main claim that exists in Carr and Kutty’s argument and that is adequate schooling. Hurston insists that:
If there are not adequate Negro schools in Florida, and there is some residual, some
inherent and unchangeable quality in white schools, impossible to duplicate anywhere
else, then I am the first to insist that Negro children of Florida be allowed to share this
25
boon. But if there are adequate Negro schools and prepared instructors and instructions,
then there is nothing different except the presence of white people. (1)
In other words, Hurston is stating that there is no indubitable quality that exists in white folks that makes their schools better than Black folks’. This idea relates back to the concept of money being the only defining factor in whether or not students are receiving adequate means of education. She is stating that she has seen examples of Black students receiving education from
Black teachers, in Black-run facilities, that are just as good as white schools, and the only difference being the intrusion of whiteness. She persists in her argument that since the
Reconstruction it has been the nationwide belief that Black folks’ greatest delight is the “physical association with whites” (Hurston 1). Scholar, Monica Miller believes that Hurston saw the
Brown v. Board decision as “an insult because it decreed that there was a fundamental, hierarchical difference between black and white education” (853) and in turn culture and ultimately Black people. Miller’s piece outlines Hurston’s intentionality when writing about all
Black spaces.
In his article, “Serving Two Masters'' Derrick A. Bell Jr. explains that as opposed to other types of desegregation the aims of school desegregation were rooted in the idea that “the actual presence of white children is said to be essential to the right in both its philosophical and pragmatic dimensions” (7). This can be understood as the belief that the only way Black children could receive a quality education is if they attended school alongside white children. According to Bell “all too little attention has been given to making black schools educationally effective”
(8). He maintains that conditions occurring within integrated schools such as “low academic performance and large numbers of disciplinary and expulsion cases” serve as tangible evidence of “the racial subordination of blacks” (10). The claims Bell makes align with Hurston’s
26 thoughts on integration and reinforce the notion that aspects of segregation can be beneficial to the Black community. In the same vein, Malcolm X argues that an all-Black school that is staffed by Black folks, controlled by Black folks, and filled with learning materials that privilege
Blackness and the Black experience is not a segregated school. Rather “it’s only segregated when it’s controlled by someone from outside” (17). Of this ideology, scholar, Gary Peller dissects that “while integrationists understood public school integration to be the institutional synonym for racial justice, Malcolm X asserted that integration was a manifestation of white supremacist ideology” (135). In 1967 at the height of the civil rights movement and during the constant tension between Black and white southerners about school integration, Stokely
Carmichael argued against the issue by contending that school integration, at its most basic level, reinforced the idea that in order to have better Blacks must be in close proximity to whites. That by pushing this idea the Black children were being conditioned to accept “that ‘white’ is automatically superior and ‘black’ is by definition inferior” (54). These theorists offered other solutions to the problems posed by school segregation that did not include white intrusion but rather, centered Blackness in education.
In a later, personal letter to Countee Cullen Hurston admits that she cannot fully be against integration but rather disagrees about the way the government has gone about it. Regarding the issue of segregation Hurston says that her viewpoint is indifferent and that her only desire is for human justice (1). She then goes on to say that she has “no desire for white association except where [she] is sought and the pleasure is mutual” (1). She discusses her disdain for white liberals and lets it be known that there are more pressing issues facing Black people than whether or not they are integrated. If nothing else, these letters solidify Hurston’s position on the topic of
27 segregation. The underlying concern here is that along with total integration will also come “the total absorption and disappearance of the race—a sort of painless genocide” (Peller 135).
Make no mistake, it is not my intention to downplay the serious repercussions that can occur as a result of segregation. I simply believe that the practice does hold some merit and that
Black authors throughout time have backed up this claim through their writing. If no one else has, certainly Zora Neale Hurston brought a window to readers by which they were able to catch a glimpse into Black life, uninhibited by whiteness. Though unconventional, I argue that this thought pattern is worth consideration, for it has benefits seen and unseen.
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Blackness and White Intrusion in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) is a landmark piece of Black literature that has not only had an effect on the Black community but has also made its way into classrooms, book clubs, writer’s circles and most notably— the canon. The narrative follows the tragic life of
Pecola Breedlove and her family through their separate backstories as the readers catch a glimpse into what it is like to have whiteness as a standard and to yearn for blue eyes. No one quite captures the interiority of Blackness and the nuances of Black life the way Morrison does. This chapter shows the ways in which Morrison examines the consequences of white intrusion on
Black autonomous living.
In this novel, Morrison purposefully conflates the idea of the American Dream with whiteness. This begins from the very first page with the Dick and Jane primer. The Dick and
Jane primer was a tool used to help children learn how to read and write in the 1940s and 1950s.
It consists of simple sentences that can be easily understood and copied by children. Phrases such as “Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family.
Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green and white house” make up the body of the primer. Morrison uses the primer as an indicator signaling the decline of the Breedlove family.
On the first and second pages of the novel, the primer is printed three times. In the second print, the punctuation has been eliminated and by the third print, the letters are bleeding together because both spacing and punctuation have been removed making it look something like this:
“Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisthefamilymotherfatherdickan
29 djaneliveinthegreenandwhitehouse”. Morrison includes the primer as a representation of the
American Dream. Everything is perfect and normal within the pre-scripted bounds of the primer until conditions have become such that the standards set in the primer are unreachable. The perfect house, perfect family, perfect pets, and perfect living conditions are unattainable and because of this “the dream” begins to disintegrate. The written text itself begins a slow decline into madness, mirroring Pecola’s unfortunate descent. Michael Awkward posits that the inclusion of the primer serves as a chapter by chapter reminder of the “Breedlove’s utter failure to conform to the standards by which the beauty and happiness of the primer [American] family are measured” ( 58). He argues that Morrison’s manipulation of the primer is a pushback against the white influence and voice that often permeates “Afro-American art” and society (Awkward
59).
In his book, Between the World and Me (2017), Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at length about
“the dream” which he defines as being:
Perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations,
and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells
like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have
wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.
But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs, the
bedding made from our bodies. (11)
What Coates is saying here is that Black bodies are and were integral in building “the dream” but are and were not included among the ranks of those who are able to reap the harvest of said dream. Black bodies are not able to actively participate in this dream. This begs audiences to ask who can make a claim on “the dream”? Certainly, Black people should be able to do so but
30 seeing that Coates claims they aren’t— who is? Who is this dream attainable and sustainable for?
Morrison’s narrative along with Hurston’s and Hansberry’s suggest that the dream was and is created solely with white people in mind. If this is the case then what follows when race holds a group of people back from attaining the dream that is dangled in front of children’s face in the
Dick and Jane primer? What exactly is at stake?
What lies at the center of both Coates’ and Morrison’s versions of “the dream” is autonomous living. Both the primer and Coates’ definition make mention of secure, single- family housing which is the first and arguably the most important asset to obtain if one wants to acquire his or her own independence. From there Coates focuses on neighborhood and community amenities that come with autonomous living while Morrison’s primer, true to the narrative, hones in on the interiority of the family. History and the texts themselves let readers know that these things were either incredibly difficult to obtain for Black folks if not impossible all together which is why it is crucial to know what is being referenced when either one refers to
“the dream.”
The Danger of Disinterested Violence
Morrison introduces the Breedloves and their surrounding community as being engulfed by whiteness that induces feelings of violence in the youngest of them. Immediately after the first primer, Claudia is reiterating a scene that involves their next-door neighbor, Rosemary
Villanucci who is a white girl about their age, taunting them about not being able to get into the car that she is sitting in. This scene may not read as dynamic but it is important to note that
Claudia describes the girl as a friend but proceeds to go on a violent tangent about wanting to
“poke the arrogance out of her eyes and smash the pride of ownership [out of] her mouth” (9) for little more than eating a sandwich in a Buick and taunting them. However, it is not just the
31 taunting that provokes this train of thought. It is the arrogance and the “pride of ownership” with which the little girl does the things. Claudia and Frieda feel threatened by her existence, strangled by her whiteness so much so that they are immediately on the defensive.
Following the above incident, Claudia muses about her sister’s, and everyone else's, adoration of a Shirley Temple doll that Claudia despises. She remarks that she was unable to take part in their love of the doll “because [she] hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles who was [her] friend [her] uncle,[her] daddy” (19). Upon a first read, it may seem as if Claudia is simply exhibiting normal childhood jealousy when in reality she is actually participating in an active rejection of whiteness. There is a cultural pride and awareness that Claudia does not want to be intruded upon by whiteness coupled with her seeing familiarity in the person of Bojangles and desiring that kind of attention from the Black men in her own life.
She goes on to say that upon encountering other white dolls she:
had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the
dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped [her], but apparently
only [her]. (20)
Claudia could not understand what it was about the white dolls that enamored everyone so and in hindsight believes that the dolls “represented what [people] thought was [her] fondest wish” (20).
Morrison does not explicitly say what that wish is but it seems fair to infer that this wish is something along the lines of what Hurston believed those who were pushing so hard to be integrated wanted-close proximity to whiteness. In this moment in the text, the audience is confronted with the reality that a young Black girl holds a deep-seated desire to inflict violence upon white dolls, and not only that but she also experiences “transference of the same impulses to little white girls” (22). She reminisces that unlike the dolls the white girls reacted in pain when
32 she would inflict it upon them. Claudia recalls the shame that followed her actions after realizing that what she was exacting on the white girls is what Morrison has coined “disinterested violence” that earned its repulsiveness from the fact that it was disinterested (23). This type of violence is more dangerous because of the detachment of it all. It makes the transition to hating with reckless abandon seamless. Morrison makes it a point to single out this kind of violence because it is the brand that penetrates all-Black spaces when they are infiltrated by uninvited whiteness.
Claudia’s destroying the white dolls represents dismembering the illusion of whiteness and in the process of trying to figure out the conundrum of unattainable white beauty. Claudia’s inability to obtain “the dream,” “beauty,” whiteness makes her hate it. This is what happens when Black autonomous living is threatened and encroached upon by an unattainable standard of beauty, read: whiteness. She muses that eventually she “learned to worship her” though this
“change was adjustment without improvement” (23). This statement is significant because
Claudia is recognizing that while a shift in her attitude has occurred it is not a step up from her unbridled hatred and desire to destroy. Morrison insists that this is a lateral move. Claudia has not learned how to accept her Black self and is still unable to move beyond the prison of white beauty standards which means loving the dolls and their beauty is just as harmful as hating them vehemently.
White Intrusion On Black Spaces
Phenotypic whiteness is constantly set in juxtaposition to phenotypic Blackness in a way that positions whiteness as ideal. This should not be misinterpreted as Morrison attempting to get her audience to align with this kind of thinking but rather it should be understood as the
33 pervasive nature of the climate that the characters and their communities have to wrestle with.
These circumstances are the ones that brought about the plot and title of the novel. Pecola
Breedlove, the tragic center of the story, is pursuing literal blue eyes throughout the entire novel.
When she is picked on at school or things are going wrong at home Pecola believes that it is because she is ugly with her Black features and that circumstances would be more likely to go in her favor if she had more white features and blue eyes.
There could be no analysis of the conditions that set the stage for the breakdown of the
Breedlove’s autonomy without a discussion of the role that the white gaze plays in the text. At a pivotal time in Pecola’s development there comes an unnecessary interjection of whiteness which in some minor ways mirror an episode in Pecola’s father, Cholly’s development; this scene, which I would argue is one of the most important scenes in the text is to be discussed in greater detail later. During this particular scene, Pecola has just had her first period and Claudia and Frieda are trying to make sense of this foreign occurrence and help out their friend. As
Claudia is trying to find somewhere in the bushes to discard Pecola’s soiled underwear she spots
Rosemary staring at her in bewilderment and shortly after that the girl begins yelling “they’re playing nasty, Mrs. MacTeer. Look. And Claudia hit me ‘cause I seen them” (30). The girls loudly begin to protest these accusations but to no avail as Mrs. MacTeer grabs Frieda and begins beating her. Once she is done with her she moves to do the same to Pecola when she sees the makeshift sanitary napkin that Claudia and Frieda tried to make for her. Once Mrs. MacTeer realizes her mistake she takes them in her arms in a conciliatory style and tells Rosemary to “Go on home… t[]he show is over” (31). This interaction between the girls and Mrs. MacTeer is an illustration of controlling images.
34
Controlling images are stereotypes of Black women that are rooted in racist and sexist ideology. The two most common of these are the Mammy and the Jezebel. The Jezebel archetype is derived from the conviction that Black women are oversexed, morally bankrupt, sexual deviants who are filled with lustful wanton desire. This stereotype has been used for centuries to justify sexual assault against Black women and weaponize their sexuality against them. When
Rosemary accuses the girls of “playing nasty” and Mrs. MacTeer proceeds to carry out an act of violence on Frieda, it can be said that she was attempting to beat the controlling image of the promiscuous Jezebel out of her. The claim can also be made that Mrs. MacTeer was trying to preserve her own self-definition of her daughter. The incident also speaks to Barbara Smith’s concept of heterosexual Black women “maintaining straightness” at all costs as a way to grip on to the last attribute that would offer them any level of power within the matrix of domination
(Collins 136). Either way, her awareness of such informed her actions.
This scene illustrates the white gaze both literally and figuratively and the consequences that come with white intrusion on Black autonomy. These instances make appearances throughout The Bluest Eye as well as instances where even Black people are seen valuing white
(ness) knowledge, feelings, and opinions over that of their own people. This is also seen in the way Morrison plays with actual colors, usually brown and white when referencing fabrics and other inanimate objects. As this occurs all over the text audiences can infer that Morrison intentionally places these descriptors in order to set up a contrast. Readers will note that in places where a pair of socks or curtains are described as being brown this usually denotes usage by a
Black family and often stands in staunch contrast to the bright white linens of a white or white passing family.
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In one episode that speaks to Morrison’s aims, readers are with Pecola as she is merrily walking towards a candy shop in town and happens upon a cluster of dandelions which cause her to wonder why people call them weeds when “she thought they were pretty” ( 47). However, after a heartbreaking encounter with the clerk who refuses to see her and recoils in order to avoid even slightly grazing Pecola’s hand, she sees the dandelions on her way back home and thinks,
“[t]hey are ugly. They are weeds” (51). When Pecola first sees the dandelions she regards them as beautiful and struggles to understand why people are so quick to toss them aside and render them ugly; however, after her dehumanizing encounter at the candy store she suddenly aligns with the popular belief that they are nothing more than useless weeds. The turning point in
Pecola’s consciousness about the dandelions occurs only after a moment where she is confronted with disinterested white violence and internalizes yet one more stratum of self-hatred.
If we allow the dandelions to serve as metaphors for Blackness then it stands to reason that Morrison is making a statement about time, place, and space. The first instance has already been dissected—Pecola thought the dandelions were beautiful under one lens and at one time and then she did not. Placed in a recently manicured lawn a dandelion is seen as a nuisance and eyesore but placed in the excited and receptive hand of a child it is a welcomed gift. Placement matters. When in a field among other like specimens the plant is at home and fits in with the dandelions around it. It is in no way out of place nor is it somewhere that it should not be. The opposite can be said when the same dandelion is spotted in a field of sunflowers or daffodils. In this scenario, the dandelion is not only different but is valued less and therefore may be marked as ugly and a nuisance. In the same way, The Bluest Eye traces and illustrates the perils of white intrusion on Black spaces as well as what can happen when there are Black people existing or moving through white spaces and their beauty and knowledge is discounted or discredited.
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Still relatively early in the narrative audiences are forced to reckon with the character of
Maureen Peal. The little girl is described as “a high yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back” who possesses “sloe green eyes, something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk” (62). She is also described as being someone who is able to move through the world unscathed.
She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled
encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her,
white girls didn’t suck their teeth at her when she was assigned to be their work
partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’
toilet, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids. (63)
Based on her description the audience knows that Maureen Peal is a biracial child who is mixed with Black and white. Morrison literally refers to whiteness mixing with Blackness as a
“disrupter of seasons” (62) in the person of Maureen Peal. Not only is Maureen a metaphor for white intrusion but she is a literal, biological white imposition on Blackness. This being said, it is fascinating to observe the way that Morrison describes Maureen as possessing a kind of ethereal quality that allows her to glide through society in everybody’s favor. Morrison’s description of the way Maureen is treated by others is an indication of “white identity and whiteness [as] sources of privilege and protection” (Harris 279). At first, it seems as if she is trying to befriend
Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola but what starts off amicably turns into a shouting match between the girls which ends with Maureen screaming “I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute!” (73). Notice how smoothly Maureen pairs Blackness with ugly all the while contrasting that ugliness with what she believes to be her inherent beauty. There is multilayered irony at play here considering the fact that Maureen is also Black and has managed to internalize
37 enough racism, as well as a deep understanding of the benefits of leaning into whiteness for that outburst to play out in the way that it did. Claudia internalizes this in a way that makes her muse on the fact that if Maureen “was cute then [they] were not. And what did that mean? [They] were lesser” (74). She goes on to ask a series of questions, one being what did they lack? She arrives at the conclusion that “the Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful and not [them]”
(74) which in this case was her close association to whiteness-similarly to the Shirley Temple
Dolls.
In the same vein as the Maureen Peal’s of the world are the Geraldine’s. These women are
[S]ugar brown Mobile girls[…] are as sweet and as plain as buttercake[...] They
do not drink, smoke, or swear, and they still call sex “nookey”[...] They go to
land-grant colleges, normal schools and learn how to do the white man’s work
with refinement... [They cultivate ways] to get rid of the funkiness[...] Wherever it
erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it
drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle
all the way to the grave. The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little
too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of a
sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear
of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair. (82-
3)
Morrison spends five pages describing these kinds of women who, though they are Black, dedicate unfathomable amounts of energy to erasing all traces of Blackness. This kind of woman
38 is repressed, fake, and artificially reserved. In other words, there is no actual need for this type of behavior beyond the use of it as a coping mechanism and a means by which self-preservation is achieved. Black folks who attempt to align themselves with stereotypical whiteness must, in turn, distance themselves from stereotypical Blackness in order to live in a way that they deem acceptable. This can prove useful when trying to avoid open conflict with white people in integrated spaces. The point that Morrison is making by including this kind of Black person in the narrative is that internalized self-hatred can manifest itself in different types of Black people and that few, if any, are completely immune to white imposition.
The above description leads audiences into a particularly heart-wrenching interaction between Geraldine’s son, Junior, and Pecola wherein he lures her into the house to see the black cat that his mother loves so dearly and then by every fault of his own the cat ends up dead. Of course, Geraldine walks into the room at that exact moment to find the cat dead and Junior placing the blame on Pecola resulting in Geraldine calling her a “nasty little Black bitch” and demanding that she leave the house. Before all of this though the audience gets a pretty clear picture of the toll that Geraldine’s self-preservation measures have taken on her son’s psyche. To complement Geraldine’s repressive nature we are told that “Geraldine did not allow her baby,
Junior, to cry. Geraldine did not talk to him, coo to him, or indulge him in kissing bouts” (86) and because of her reinforced coldness towards him, “he learned how to direct his hatred of his mother to the cat” (86). Beyond the physical and emotional neglect, Geraldine also kept a tight rein on who he interacted with outside of the home. Junior was only permitted to socialize with white kids as “his mother did not like him to play with niggers” (87). Morrison asserts that Junior desired to play with the Black boys even more than most because it was forbidden. Had he been permitted to do so his self-image would have certainly been affected in a positive way as
39 opposed to him “gradually [coming] to agree with his mother” (87). Geraldine goes on to differentiate between “colored people” and “niggers.” “Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud” and Geraldine was sure to let him know that “he belonged to the former group” (87). Within Black literature, especially literature produced during the Harlem
Renaissance there is the recurring theme of the word “nigger” being used as a class marker. This can be seen in pieces such as James Wheldon Johnson’s, The Autobiography of the Ex-Coloured
Man where the protagonist spends his whole life avoiding traces of “nigger” and leaning into those parts of Blackness that society deems closer to whiteness which, in turn, leaves “colored.”
In other words, Morrison is directly playing upon this theme in order to make a point about autonomy within Black communities and families. Neither Geraldine nor her son are free to be themselves, and both of them end up projecting their race-based self-hatred onto Pecola. Because this chapter of The Bluest Eye, essentially, stands in isolation in that Geraldine, Junior, and the cat are never mentioned in the narrative again it is not wild to claim that Morrison included it to drive home the point that white influence on Black life and Black spaces can act as a disrupter and destroyer while also functioning as a disinfectant or sanitizer of Blackness via self-hatred and erasure.
“Where’s Polly”?
Pecola’s mother, Pauline Breedlove, is just as culpable as everyone else who contributed to the denigration of Pecola’s self-image. Much like the other characters, Mrs. Breedlove is heavily affected by European beauty standards and white intrusion on her day to day activities.
Beyond the fact that Mrs. Breedlove believes her daughter is ugly and says as much not long after she is born, she is overall neglectful of her daughter’s emotional and sometimes physical well-being. On one particular occasion, Pecola accompanied Mrs. Breedlove to work where she
40 served as a mammy for a white child. In this capacity, Mrs. Breedlove not only looked after the child but also took care of the house through cooking, cleaning, and other domestic duties.
During one of her shifts Claudia and Pecola decided to make a visit to Pecola and while they are on their way Claudia, the narrator, gives a description of the area and makes a note of where “the streets changed [and] house looked more sturdy, their paint was newer, porch posts straighter, yards deeper” (105). She notes that because the air that hovered over the steel mill section of the city never reached this part of town “this sky was always blue” (105). Eventually, they reach
Lake Shore Park which the audience learns is an area that Black people are not allowed in which leads this venue to fill her and Frieda’s dreams (105). It is important to note that the narrative takes place in the north, Lorain, Ohio to be exact. What this scene manages to do is show a little slice of residential segregation that exists only in favor of whites. It also offers commentary about class difference—interracial but intraracial as well. By this I mean notice how Claudia points out that the air and the sky are different here because it is not so close to the factories, which also means it is not close to the working-class folks who are supported by these factories.
This class stratification is not race-specific, and this is evident when Claudia tells the story about the white girl that lives next door to them. However, the segregated neighborhood is separated by both race and class while the park is just segregated by race. In all cases, white people found a way to live independently of anyone but themselves in spaces all their own.
It is crucial to recognize and understand the differences between Northern and Southern intraracial interactions and what this meant for Black people during the time that the novel is set.
Mrs. Breedlove and Cholly migrated to Lorain from the south, and once she was here for a bit she began to miss her “people” she says. Pauline recalls, longingly that she wasn’t “used to seeing so [many] white folks” and that the ones she saw “before was something hateful, but they
41 didn’t come around too much” (117). What Pauline is expressing is a desire to experience some of the social benefits of the de jure and de facto segregation that occurred in the South. By saying this, Pauline is challenging the stereotype that residential segregation is something that is inherently negative for Blacks. This notion rails against the persistent idea that residential segregation is detrimental to the whole of the Black experience. Though there may be financial disparity there are also social benefits that occur when Black people are able to be themselves in social isolation. Peller correctly asserts that:
It was the black masses who first perceived that integration actually increases the
white community’s control over the black community by destroying institutions,
and by absorbing black leadership and coinciding its interests with those of the
white community. (135)
These sentiments are echoed in both Zora Neale Hurston and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s writing. Pauline notes that the only interactions the people in her community had with white people tended to be rare and violent. This experience differs from Hurston’s only in the fact that her rare interactions with white folks were not violent. Worth noting is the sentiment that typically occurs in “passing novels” such as Nella Larsen’s Passing or James Wheldon Johnson’s Autobiography of An Ex-
Coloured Man wherein after a lifetime of rejecting their Blackness and assimilating into an all- white world the protagonist looks back on his or her life with a heavy regret and a deep sorrow that comes from throwing away a rich cultural treasure in favor of an “easier” life.
At a previous domestic job held by Mrs. Breedlove, after witnessing some of the domestic violence that Cholly inflicted upon Pauline her employer admonished her by saying that she should have more respect for herself and that “it was [her] husband’s duty to pay the bills, and if he couldn’t [she] should leave and get alimony” (121). Mrs. Breedlove goes on to
42 state that she “reckon[s] she couldn’t understand” (122). This instance perfectly illustrates the vast distance between Blackness and whiteness. Mrs. Breedlove’s white employer was unable to realize or understand the difference between what Black women did and what white women did to survive—the differences between what it meant to live as a Black female versus a white female. Though both may have been struggling under the boot of patriarchy there are racialized differences that accompany the Black female experience. Kimberlé Crenshaw described this best when she claimed that “because women of color experience racism in ways not always the same as those experienced by men of color and sexism in ways not always parallel to experiences of white women” feminist and antiracist aims are often inadequate on their own (360). One of the major differences between white feminism and Black feminism is treatment and obligation within the domestic sphere. Traditionally, white women were relegated to the home where cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, and other domestic chores were hers and hers alone.
She often would not have a job outside of the home, and if she did that job would often be limited in nature and it was understood that the maintenance of her home was to come first. This was certainly not the case for Black women who, more likely than not, spent very little time at home with their own families because they consistently had to hold down a job outside of the home. This led the dominant culture to view Black women, and by extension Black families, as deficient in some way because this way of living fell short of the typical idyllic American family
(Collins 53). Of this Collins determines:
If one assumes that real men work and real women take care of families, then African-
Americans suffer from deficient ideas concerning gender. In particular, Black women
become less “feminine”, because they work outside the home, work for pay and thus
compete with men, and their work takes them away from their children. (53,4)
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Simply pointing this out calls on society to challenge views and assumptions about what constitutes a family. It begs the audience to consider the fact that definitions can “vary greatly depending on who controls the definitions” (Collins 54). Returning to the scene in question, upon arrival at the home where Mrs. Breedlove is working the girls run into a little white girl who immediately upon seeing the girls asks, “Where’s Polly?” To this Claudia muses that a “familiar violence” rose within her as it was utterly preposterous that Pecola was only allowed to refer to her mother as Mrs. Breedlove but this little white girl was given license to address her by a nickname (108). Within the same moment, Pecola accidentally knocks a pie off of the counter that Mrs. Breedlove had just prepared for the child, and even though the innards of the hot pie burn Pecola’s legs Mrs. Breedlove’s response is to backhand Pecola, knocking her to the floor
(109). After forcing the girls to leave Mrs. Breedlove scoops up the crying white girl and comforts her by cooing “hush, baby, hush” and promising to make another pie (109). Morrison describes Mrs. Breedlove as having “honey in her words” towards the little white girl but spitting words out “like rotten pieces of apple” towards Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda. This juxtaposition of tone is set up to show the audience the way in which Mrs. Breedlove privileges the feelings of a white child over and above that of her own daughter who was physically harmed by the mistake.
Similarly to how Claudia and Frieda felt when coming into the white neighborhood, Mrs.
Breedlove “looked at their houses, smelled their linen, touched their silk draperies and loved all of it...she became what is known as an ideal servant, for such a role filled practically all of her needs” (127). This passage shows the juxtaposition between the white world and the Black world as well as illustrating how in “loving all of it” Pauline began hating her own world. Because she was experiencing whiteness only from the margins of servitude whiteness was set as a standard as opposed to just another variation on living. She felt powerful, loved, wanted, and needed in
44 her role which is why she was so endearing towards the little white girl while simultaneously handling Pecola so cruelly. Mrs. Breedlove was receiving something from this white world that she was not only unaccustomed to receiving at home but also incapable of receiving. She absorbed her ideas about her place in the world from these standards of whiteness. In this way,
Mrs. Breedlove’s presence and absorption into this world aligns her with Pecola’s dandelions and the perceptions of them that are rooted in space and place.
Sins of the Father
Second only to Pecola, Charles “Cholly” Breedlove is the character who is most affected by an early intrusion of white supremacy during an integral moment in his development. This intrusion led to and aided in his intraracial and gendered violence later on. A day or two after the death of his aunt and caretaker Cholly was outside of his aunt's house socializing with some neighborhood kids. Soon he and a girl named Darlene had wandered off into the woods and were on the ground about to engage in their first sexual intercourse when two white hunters with guns and flashlights appeared behind them. When Cholly froze, one of the hunters prompted him to continue by saying “Get on wid it, nigger” (148). The scene that follows sets the stage for the violence exacted by Cholly for the rest of his life. Darlene averts her eyes away from the light and seems to engage in a dissociative state of sorts while Cholly, completely flaccid, can only pretend to have sex with Darlene after yanking her dress up “with a violence born of total helplessness” (148). As the hunters are still egging him on, audiences get a look into Cholly’s interior where they learn that in that moment “he hated her [and] he almost wished he could do it—hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much” (148). This moment of white intrusion renders Cholly impotent and symbolically takes away his manhood. The image of a young, Black inexperienced and impotent Cholly is juxtaposed with the image of the hunters, mature, white,
45 virile, and holding the phallic guns and flashlights. I argue that in many ways this scene is a symbolic rape and in order to deal with this trauma Cholly transforms his fear, embarrassment, emasculation, into hatred and then transfers it from the white men to Darlene and future women in his life.
Critics may argue that to blame Cholly’s deprivation and Pecola’s subsequent rape on white supremacy and its intrusion on Black autonomous living reductive but I argue that while it would be shortsighted to attribute the whole of Cholly’s corruption to that singular event it does make it easier to understand the Breedlove’s unique positioning within society as a result of the overarching effects of white supremacy and its intrusion. That being said, the isolated events that have earned their place in this thesis do not exist in a vacuum. The condition that made the
Breedloves existed in the air. White supremacy penetrated the atmosphere via commercials, toys, movies, television shows, and day to day interactions with neighbors.
Cholly exclusively abusing women is significant because it speaks to the hierarchy of the time which went something like this with caveats and exceptions notwithstanding: white men, white women, white children, Black men, Black women, Black children. Morrison gives a rundown of this hierarchy when she is explaining Mrs. Breedlove’s disposition and Zora Neale Hurston also makes mention of it in Their Eyes Were Watching God in a scene where Nanny is trying to explain the way the world works to a young and naive Janie. “De nigger woman is de mule of de earth” (Hurston 7), she says to Janie after reciting the hierarchy to her. If the hierarchy is as listed above, then it is no wonder that Black women and children are the ones who bear the brunt of secondary pain associated with racial violence.
It seems as if every moment in the text is leading up to the singular moment where Pecola is raped by Cholly. But before that instance, the audience's curiosity about the events leading up
46 to this moment are satiated. Shortly after Cholly’s aunt dies he goes on a pilgrimage to find his father based on what little information he has about him. When he arrives in Macon, Georgia he does locate his father but when he attempts to hold a conversation with him he clams up and his father ends up shouting at him to “get the fuck outta [his] face” (156). Upon leaving Cholly makes his way out into the street and while he is focused on conserving the few scraps of masculinity and pride that he has left by not crying “his bowels suddenly opened up, and before he could realize what he knew, liquid stools were running down his legs” (157). He proceeds to remain in that alley balled up in fetal position for the remainder of the day. At night he finds a brothel where he has sex with a prostitute or several, which Morrison describes as them giving
“him back his manhood, which he [took] aimlessly” (159). After this Morrison remarks that
Cholly was free.
Free to be tender or violent...Free to take a woman’s insult’s, for his body had
already conquered hers. Free even to knock her in the head, for he had already
cradled that head in his arms. Free to be gentle when he was sick, or mop her
floor, for she knew what and where his maleness was. (159)
There is a complex multiplicity that exists within Cholly’s actions that culminates in what
Morrison describes as “freedom” because Cholly has walked through a gamut of emotions and then allows himself to roam freely through opposing ones. Morrison allows readers to witness the birth of the violent, alcoholic, version of Cholly that sets the tone for the entire novel starting with the intrusion of whiteness and ending with the rejection from his father.
Though there certainly are assorted instances of physical violence at the hands of Cholly throughout the narrative, the most striking scenes of violence perpetrated by Cholly are those involving sexual assault. As readers are receiving Mrs. Breedlove’s story in her own voice there
47 is a casual mention of marital rape that goes on between her and Cholly. She muses that as opposed to when they first got married sex with Cholly mostly consisted of him “thrashing away inside of [her] before [she’s] woke” (131) because he has come home in a drunken stupor.
Morrison wants her readers to take pause at this because of how casually it is mentioned. The fact that it is recounted almost in passing is because it has become so normal to her and it is important for that detail not to be lost.
The most heinous sexual offense he commits is against Pecola in the form of rape which occurs in the kitchen of their home one day as he is watching her wash dishes. As he is looking at her he feels “revulsion, guilt, pity, then love” (161) which mirrors the emotions that he felt with Darlene. Morrison notes that in that moment “he wanted to break her neck —but tenderly.
Guilt and impotence rose” within him and he wondered “what could he do for her-ever” (161)?
The passage goes on to examine the interiority of Cholly’s mind further by asserting that it infuriates him that she loves him when he is unable to do anything for her. This is an interesting passage because it shows Cholly’s own inadequacy that was jump started by the incident with
Darlene spiraling into this flurry of rash thoughts that eventually lead him to “love” Pecola in the only way he knows how—raping her. After describing the attack Morrison uses the word
“disintegration” to describe “the falling away of sexual desire” (163). The use of this word is curious here, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “breaking up; destruction of cohesion or integrity” but in the context in which Morrison is using the word, it preludes a moment of consciousness for Cholly. These instances are Cholly’s way of reclaiming what he felt he lost the night when he was forced to simulate sex with Darlene. He is constantly reliving that moment and acting out that which he was unable to do all those years ago but wishes that he could.
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By allowing her audience a look into the interiority of the Breedloves, Morrison is offering an examination of what occurs when whiteness intrudes on Black spaces. She not only gives a look into the literal but also the figurative by allowing readers to witness the internalization of white supremacy that occurs within Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola. By using the primer as a staunch juxtaposition, Morrison forces a hard look at the “American Dream” and posits a suggestion about how to go about it sans white supremacy.
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Privileging an Unattainable Dream: Black Autonomous Living in Lorraine Hansberry’s A
Raisin In The Sun
Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin In The Sun, has been hailed as a touchstone piece of
Black literature since its production in 1959. Since then many adaptations, reinventions, and even sequels have been imagined all centered around this text. The piece, named after a line in
Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” focuses on the dreams, goals, and aspirations of the
Youngers—a poor Black family living in Chicago. Throughout the piece, readers and audiences alike are made to sympathize with the plight of the Youngers and cheer for them when they attain what they have decided is the “American Dream.” Centering itself in a discussion of residential segregation, A Raisin In the Sun privileges the idea of the “American Dream” but I counter this notion by arguing that the “American dream” was never intended for Black folks and that it is problematic to qualify the move to a white neighborhood as something to be reached for and applauded when obtained.
Just as Toni Morrison forces her audience to examine the innards of the “American
Dream” so does Hansberry. Because the name of this piece is taken from Hughes’ “Harlem” it makes sense to turn an inquisitive eye to that as well. The poem is as follows:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
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Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? (1-11)
Hughes wrote this and several other poems that were focusing on Harlem as well as the people and situations happening in the mostly Black city. As evident by the tone and word choices that
Hughes makes it is clear that he is reading dreams that are put off—indefinitely if not forever as something that is ultimately detrimental to the dreamer. However, this begs the reader to ask what exactly is the dream that is being put on hold? Based on the title of her play it is safe to assert that Hansberry’s answer to this would be the “American Dream.” After this, it is our responsibility to rake through the text in an attempt to pull the meaning out of this. Keeping in mind Coates’ definition of “the dream” and Morrison’s interpretation of it, this thesis proceeds to make an interpretation of what Hansberry does with it.
An Unavoidable Problem: Gender and Autonomy in A Raisin In The Sun
Though the aims of this thesis are mainly centered around representations of Black autonomous living, it would be an oversight to ignore the gender stratification that is so readily apparent in A Raisin In The Sun. One of the major problems presented by the text is an idealized version of masculinity that is wrapped up in a white aesthetic. Walter wants better for his son and
51 regretfully muses that though he is thirty-five years old and has been married for eleven years, his son “has to sleep in the living room and all [he has] to give him is stories about how rich white people live” (34). To this statement Walter’s wife, Ruth tells him to eat his eggs. After
Walter blows up on Ruth for minimizing his frustrations she tells him that the emotions that he is experiencing are not novel and that it does not matter that he “would rather be Mr. Arnold than be his chauffeur” because she “would rather be living in Buckingham Palace” (34). During the heated exchange that follows Walter insults Ruth by making a gross generalization about all
Black women that implies that they don’t know how to do anything outside of tear their men down and that Black men who have gone on to make something of themselves did it “[n]o thanks to the colored woman” (34). Juxtapose this with the stereotypical female reaction which is to take care of and meet the basic day to day needs of the family. Walter is unable or unwilling to recognize the value in the domestic, familial upkeep that Ruth is doing by making sure that he has had his breakfast before leaving out of the house. Historically, feeding their men and their children and taking pride in the same is something Black women have done not only because eating and preparing food is a necessity but also because, at times, it was the only thing they had to give. Ruth directly says this to Walter later on in the play when he questions her again as to why she is always trying to give him something to eat (88). This action has been part of the love language of Black women since slavery when often the scraps from the master’s table were all they could give to their families—such as they were. Scraps and leftovers became full-fledged meals that gave slave families the energy they needed to go out and survive another day, and this flowed from the hands of enslaved Black women. This motif makes an appearance in The Bluest
Eye after Cholly has soiled himself in the alley following the rejection by his father. The narrator tells readers that in that moment the only thing Cholly longs for is a piece of his Aunt Jimmy’s
52
“smoked hock out of her dish” (158) which he recognizes as being one of the ways she expresses love for him.
In her book, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power,
Psyche A. Williams-Forson outlines the complex relationship between Black women and food and more specifically the relationship between Black people and chicken. She begins by tracing
Black peoples’ relationship to food starting in the postbellum marketplace where occasionally slave owners sought to alleviate feeding costs by allowing their slaves to sell in the local marketplace in order to feed themselves. One of her initial assertions is that during enslavement being able to participate in the marketplace via the selling of goods offered slaves “the ability to exercise a modicum of autonomy” by not only providing them the opportunity “to supplement the food and clothing allotted to them by plantation owners” (17) but also allowing them to flip the existing power dynamic on its head. They did this by asserting themselves as the ones who held all of the transactional power in that moment of exchange. Often it would seem as if the de facto rules of the day had temporarily been suspended as to allow white folk to obtain their goods. In her research Williams-Forson found that slaves, more often than not female, would sell their foodstuffs at exorbitant prices “and they would use all kinds of marketing strategies to choose which white people to sell to for how much” (24). Using these tactics, Black women would subvert capitalism to their benefit which made white folk view them unfavorably but, nevertheless, remained customers.
Sometimes slaves would market plantation goods illegally at great personal risks to themselves which operates as a great show of autonomy. The capitalistic aspect of selling goods on the market could lead to eventual freedom for women and their children. This possibility was certainly a driving factor behind the willingness of female slaves to put their lives on the line to
53 sell food. Williams-Forson asserts that “more than serving as a financial resource, cooking, and selling [food] was also an example of community cultural work” (33). Insomuch as Black women's cooking and selling food was an act of communal work it was also used to showcase their autonomy and heterogeneity from other Black women. Food allowed Black women to define themselves in spaces where this was otherwise impossible. Using cooking as a vehicle for self-definition allowed food to serve as “an important cultural mediator” which allowed Black women to “practice and preserve the food customs and rituals that are most familiar and comfortable to them in the face of class pressures and racial tensions” (91). Williams-Forson argues that “women’s work around food provided a new space from which race, gender, and class differences can be read” (86). Collins’ assertions about Black female self-definition are centered around the idea that it is absolutely essential that Black women intellectuals
“aggressively push the theme of self-definition because speaking for oneself and crafting one’s own agenda is essential to empowerment” (40). The aforementioned is an example of Black women using their cooking to break stereotypical monolithic views of themselves imparted by society such as the cooking mammy character who is portrayed as overweight, asexual, and happily subservient (i.e. Pecola’s mother). However, as Williams-Forson points out these images do not take into account real human emotions such as the pride a Black woman might feel from being able to prepare meals that nurture, comfort, and provide for her family. Using food, Black mothers were able to “protect their families against social and cultural assault as well as assist in the formation and protection of identity” (92). Food was a way to “instill notions of respectability, decorum”, familiarity, safety, “and selfhood” in the minds of working-class Black women” and their families (Williams-Forson 93). Collins notes that a recurring theme in Black feminist works is the way that “unpaid family labor is simultaneously confining and empowering
54 for Black women” and that they are able to view it “as a form of resistance to oppression than as a form of exploitation by men” which is the way familial and domestic work is often framed by white feminism (52). In this way, Ruth sought to do exactly what Walter was trying to do and subsequently what Aunt Jimmy was aiming to accomplish with young Cholly.
The white-centered idea of the “American Dream” was never intended to be accessed by
Blacks and therefore it is beneficial for Black folk to find or create their own dreams and Black spaces to fulfill such dreams. This proves important when Walter’s initial frustrations and motivations are examined. Let me be clear, the desires that Walter has for his family (a room for his son, an inheritance to pass down, a nice house to live in, a non-communal bathroom, etc.) are all worthwhile strivings and are achievements most autonomous adults work towards and in this way— they are not inherently “white things”. However, when she is chiding him, Ruth insults him by implying that he desires to be the white man whom he drives for. It is telling that she gleaned this assumption from him expressing a persistent desire to secure more for himself and his family. It shows that Ruth has created a direct correlation between success, reasonable housing, and generational wealth. Walter does not follow the vein of his wife’s thinking, however. He is set on obtaining these things all while maintaining his Blackness.
If so inclined, one could easily counter the claims being made in this chapter and assert that by creating A Raisin In The Sun, Hansberry is making space for Blacks to make a claim on
“the dream” while maintaining their Blackness but readers must ask themselves what exactly is being deferred? Hurston might argue that this particular “dream” is nothing more than Blacks desiring close proximity to whites for the purposes of success or prosperity when Black folks are capable of obtaining that on their own. Also, the integration of Blacks into white spaces does not guarantee success or upward mobility by any means. In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi
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Coates recalls making a visit to Dr. Mabel Jones who was the mother of Prince Jones, a classmate of Coates who was murdered by the police. Dr. Jones did everything that she could to make the best life for herself and her children by living exceptionally. She started off at an early age by integrating her town’s high school, going to college on a full scholarship, serving in the
Navy, and becoming a radiologist (Coates 139-40). When musing about her daughter and any potential grandchildren she might produce, Coates notes that she
was not optimistic. She was intensely worried about her daughter bringing a son into
America because she could not save him, she could not secure his body from the ritual
violence that had claimed [Prince]. (144)
Dr. Jones goes on to compare her situation to the story of Solomon Northup, whose story is told in 12 Years a Slave, by saying that Northup “had means. He had a family. He was living like a human being. And one racist act took him back.” She then parallels this to her life by saying that she “spent years developing a career, acquiring assets, engaging responsibilities” (145) and one racist act was all it took to take it away. The point that is being made by Coates and Jones is that it doesn’t matter how much upward mobility in the direction of whiteness one strives for because one instance of whiteness feeling impeded upon by Blackness is all it takes to snuff it out. One cannot gain immunity to racism and destruction by aligning themselves with whiteness. Is this to say that Black people should not reach for and achieve great things in order to have a
“comfortable” life? Certainly not and Coates discusses ways to do this without pandering to whiteness or forcing oneself into spaces that were not meant for her. This is also not to allude that Dr. Jones did any of these things or had a mindset that was in line with the thinking that a
Black person need be in close proximity to white folks to be great but rather I included it for much of the same reasons that Coates included it—to show that when it comes down to it
56 meritocracy cannot and will not save you. Walter desires upward mobility and wants success for him and his family but this ideal becomes problematic when the only way to achieve it is to align with whiteness
Challenging Assimilationist Values: Beneatha
Beneatha Younger is the character who challenges the dominant viewpoints put forward by her family while also representing a larger shift within the Black community that was happening at the time. The Youngers, like many other Black families during the Jim Crow era, were still looking to Christianity and American ideals for literal and figurative salvation.
Beneatha is very avant-garde in her conceptualization of religion. She rejects the idea of there being a God who is ultimately going to rescue Black people from racism and poverty. While discussing her career choice, Mama mentions that Lord willing, Beneatha will achieve her goal of becoming a doctor, to which Beneatha retorts that God does not have anything to do with her success or potential success (50). Her consciousness that Christianity is something that was forced upon slaves and then, in some instances, assumed by Blacks for the purposes of white alignment, situates her in opposition to dominant modes of thinking about religion and
Blackness. This conscious rejection of God earns Beneatha a hearty slap from her mother.
Later in the text and within a similar vein Beneatha questions her mother about why she puts money in the basket at church that is designated towards missionary work. To this query,
Mama replies that she donates in order to save the African people from heathenism to which
Beneatha responds they need more saving from the British and the French (57). This conversation transpired after Beneatha tells Mama about her new African suitor who is coming to visit. She cautions Mama not to pelt him with questions about Africa, and Mama wonders, out loud, why she would need to know anything about Africa. This discussion demonstrates the ways
57 in which “the white man’s burden” carried over into religious practices through the collection of alms. When Mama gives her response to Beneatha about why she gives alms, Hansberry is tapping into the colonialist notion that African peoples’ need to be freed from heathenism because they are non- white, non-Christian savages who don’t know any better. White supremacy functioned in the way it was supposed to by separating Blacks from their roots, heritage culture, which effectively severed not only the connection but also the understanding of why it is important to have knowledge of Africa outside of media portrayal. This also plays a role in Black folks wanting to live in close proximity to whites. In the reverse, I argue that because of the separation brought on by chattel slavery, Black people had to foster their own culture, heritage, and customs that though they may have been inspired by Africa they were largely born from the conditions made possible by chattel slavery and that these traditions, and customs are better fostered in primarily Black spaces. By using a Black family to posit these questions and examine these themes, Hansberry is showing the absurdity of it all while simultaneously exposing the damaging effects of colonization.
This character’s interaction with other characters makes the audience question assimilationists values and tendencies. This is further illustrated when her suitor, Joseph Asagai points how that early in their introduction, Beneatha notes that part of the reason that she was interested in him was because she desired to find her identity, to which he remarks that Blacks in the U.S. seem to all be very assimilationist in their ideals. Beneatha rails against this and spends a good portion of the play trying to prove that she is no such thing though I would argue that, on some levels, the act of moving into an all-white neighborhood qualifies as assimilationist-motive depending. All of these contemplations tie into the bigger issues of autonomy. Beginning with
Black folks’ persistent clinging to religion and moving into the desire to know one's identity,
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Hansberry is making evident the detriment that is done when Blacks know little to nothing about the history of themselves outside of enslavement and that which is known of Africa is grossly negative and misrepresented.
Serving as a foil to her relationship with Joseph Asagai is her relationship with George
Munchinson whose family is described as being “honest-to-God-real-live-rich colored people, and the only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich white people'' (49). When
Beneatha expresses that she is unable to see herself being involved with Munchinson long term, on account of his shallow nature, Ruth is shocked at this proclamation because Munchinson is rich. This illustrates a portion of what the family believes to be qualifying as the American dream. Their version of the dream always seems to be wrapped up in whiteness which here translates to wealth and class obtained by assimilation. As mentioned above Beneatha goes out of her way to show her family and her suitors that she does not align with assimilationist values and one of the blatantly obvious actions that she takes to prove this is cutting off her hair. After revealing her new hairstyle to Ruth and Munchinson, Ruth exclaims, with horror, that she could not seriously be considering going out on a date with her “head all nappy like that” (80) while
Munchinson calls her eccentric. At this point in the play, Beneatha accuses Munchinson of being an assimilationist and when Ruth asks what the definition of that is Beneatha replies that it is
“someone who is willing to give up his own culture and submerge himself completely in the dominant and in this case oppressive culture” (81). To which Munchinson replies that her
“heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts” (81). In many ways, the text seeks to refute the popular notion that Black history began with chattel slavery and that all there is to Africa is poverty and desolation. Hansberry explicitly calls out the problem
59 with the Munchinson’s in this passage. Integration and unnecessary exposure to whiteness as the standard reinforced these harmful ideals for the Munchinson’s and those like them.
The Problem: Socioeconomic Considerations
Upon receiving her late husband’s life insurance check, Mama goes out and buys a house for the Youngers in the all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park. When asked about the location of the home the text shows the audience, parenthetically, that Mama is frightened to say.
Once she reveals the location the celebratory aura in the room lifts and the audience witnesses
“Ruth’s radiance [fade] abruptly and Walter finally [turns] slowly to face his mother with incredulity and hostility” (92). This reaction stands in staunch opposition to the excitement that filled the room when they initially heard the news and immediately after this Ruth dejectedly exclaims that “there ain’t no colored people living in Clybourne Park” (93). Of course,
Hansberry anticipated that the next question that would occur in the audiences’ minds is about other areas of town that were all Black but also had houses and communities. Ruth poses this question and Mama answers that the houses for Black folks seemed to have been twice as much as the ones in white neighborhoods. This is a stellar example of the ways that white supremacy uses segregation to the advantage of its beneficiaries. Policies such as this allow (wealthy)white people to handpick the neighborhoods that they live in and decide who has access to them while putting in place and upholding other policies that make it harder if not impossible for Blacks and other racial minorities to move forward.
In his book, As Long As They Don’t Move Next Door: Segregation And Conflict In
American Neighborhoods, Stephen Grant Meyer traces the history of segregation and its effects throughout the world with an emphasis on South Africa and the United States. Meyer claims that the government “gave legal sanction to discrimination through legislation, execution and
60 adjudication” (6,7). Many of the racist policies that were put in place and upheld by the government hinged on the idea that having Blacks in the neighborhood caused property values to decrease. With these beliefs at the forefront of their organization, agencies such as The Federal
Housing Administration (FHA) “actively upheld deed restrictions against” Blacks and utilized other tactics such as furnishing a “model race-restrictive clause in its guidelines for builders and subdivision contractors” (7). Meyer notes that neither the government, realtors, or other agencies
“forged racial policies out of thin air” nor did they act in a “political and economic vacuum” (7) but rather they acted on social pressure from white society. Meyer asserts that whites firmly believed that Blacks moving into the neighborhood “heralded the decline of the living standard” and that often when the neighborhood inevitably began to deteriorate the in-migration of Blacks was blamed (8). However, as Meyer points out the whites in this situation failed to realize that because of factors such as “discrimination in employment, in moneylending and in choice of neighborhood” the only properties available were often those that were already in a state of decay (8). This begs the age-old question: what came first?
Though many Blacks were successfully able to migrate to predominantly white neighborhoods this act was also exclusionary. According to Meyer, Blacks “who have tried to move into traditionally white districts have tended to enjoy wealth and education at least equal to that of their white counterparts” (11). This is important to note because it excludes poorer and less educated Blacks in a brand of class segregation. Even more salient is the connection between this knowledge and an understanding of Hansberry’s background and upbringing. Despite all of this Meyer claims that within recent decades “significant numbers of Blacks have chosen to move into exclusively African-American suburban enclaves” (11) which can also be referred to as self-segregation.
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In 1965 the sociologists, Alma and Karl Taeuber, wrote Negroes in Cities: Residential
Segregation and Neighborhood Change. In this piece, they explore the changes that were taking place in neighborhoods that Black folk were starting to move to. Though this resource is older it is useful because it offers a look into residential segregation that would be considered contemporary based on the time in which Raisin was published (1958). To the self-segregation point made above, Taeuber notes that regardless of socioeconomic status Blacks tended to live around other Blacks while whites tended to live around other whites (1). Though evidence in his early writings point to Du Bois as being an integrationist he became far more radical towards the end of his life and toggled between embracing integration and rejecting it altogether. In his essay, “Dilemma of the Negro” Du Bois examines the merits of Blacks living separately from whites. He centers these positives attributes around stereotypically successful Black people such as “educated Negro preachers, many trained Negro teachers, and some skilled Negro physicians”
(Du Bois). In typical “Talented Tenth” style Du Bois posits the most educated and wealthiest
Blacks as having a positive effect on the Black community in a way that white people could not
(Meyer 12). Anyone who has had an encounter with Du Bois’ writing could understand the thought process behind why he privileged that particular caste of Black.
Hansberry loosely modeled A Raisin In The Sun after her own experiences growing up and it is clear that she is aiming to make an overarching point about maintaining one’s own pride, respect, and dignity which culminates in maintaining one’s humanity. Lorraine Hansberry came from a relatively wealthy, upper-middle-class family which undoubtedly biased her opinions in a way that is evident in Raisin. Her father was a U.S. Deputy Marshall and accountant who was well versed in “finance, law, invention, and social and political action”
(Cheney 2) while her mother was a teller and worked as ward committeeman of the Republican
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Party (Cheney 1). Hansberry’s parents decided that they would send all of their children to college during a time when it was rare for women to attend college, much less be encouraged to do so. For most of Hansberry’s childhood, she and her family lived similarly to if not better than middle-class whites. Carl Hansberry literally capitalized on white landlords' inability to collect rent during the depression by buying his own properties and maximizing the space, acquiring tenants, and hiring maintenance people and housekeepers. After the family had been living in apartments that were too small and dealing with racial tensions from their all-white neighbors,
Mr. Hansberry decided to buy a house in an all-white neighborhood and this move has been described as possibly “providing the germ” from which Raisin grew. It is clear that Hansberry took on her family’s attitudes and perspectives about the way things should be. In her autobiography she recalls that:
We were also vaguely taught certain absolutes: that we were better than no one
but infinitely superior to everyone; that we were the products of the proudest and
most mistreated of the races of man; that there was nothing enormously difficult
about life; that one succeeded as a matter of course. (48)
Her father also won a case against Chicago’s restrictive covenants which were put in place to bar
Blacks from being able to live in certain areas. She spoke of her father as being rather old-school in the way he believed racism ought to be fought. He had faith in the “American way” and believed that hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice were enough for a Black person to make it.
Of her father’s fight against restrictive covenants Hansberry wrote:
That fight also required that our family occupy the disputed property in a hellishly
hostile “white neighborhood” in which, literally, howling mobs surrounded our
house. One of their missiles almost took the life of the then eight-year-old signer
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of this letter. My memories of this “correct” way of fighting white supremacy in
America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from
school. (51)
What this reveals is that Hansberry’s experience pushing back against white supremacy always included direct, hostile, and often violent interaction with white folk in predominantly white spaces. It also shows how Hansberry’s coming from such an idealistic family who was also of means colored her perceptions about how the fight for autonomy should look.
After contemplating what Mama has said Ruth begins rejoicing by shouting
“HALLELUJAH! AND GOOD-BYE MISERY” (94) all while breaking into what Hansberry all but describes as a dance packed with enough gusto to nearly destroy the apartment. By this display, it is obvious that Hansberry wanted audiences to recognize this as nothing short of
Ruth’s way out. Regardless of her initial apprehensions, Ruth felt that Clybourne Park was the family's ticket to autonomy. It leaves the audience to ponder if Ruth’s joy could have been experienced anywhere but in an all-white neighborhood. Walter had his own plan and vision for gaining autonomy for his family which varied wildly from what Mama and Ruth desired for the family. Cheney asserts that “Walter Lee does not always want money just for his own sake, but as a means of acquiring education, decent housing [and] human dignity” (69). Walter fully believes that his decision to invest not only his but also Beneatha’s school money in the liquor store startup will put his family on the path to success and lead them to generational wealth.
Before he takes the money, his son inquires about what he is setting off to do. Walter responds by going off on a tangent about the great effect his actions are going to have on the life of his son and the rest of his family. In the stage notes readers can see that as his page-long rant moves forward he becomes more and more distant. Hansberry purposefully wrote his monologue in this
64 way in order to indicate how out of touch with reality his plan was and how far gone he, himself, had gotten. If nothing else leading up to this point has tipped the audience off about the preposterous nature of this scheme, this monologue is it. The idea that someone like Walter
Younger could go from living in a cramped apartment with his entire family where they are forced to share a bathroom to purchasing fancy cars for himself and his wife and having staff who keep the grounds and wait on him and his family is unlikely and outlandish. But regardless of the impossibility of the dream, it is his and he certainly believes himself to be more of a man for pursuing it.
Walter’s deep-seated desire to hand the world to his son (109) taps into the concept of generational wealth which, in at least one way, overlaps with Mama and Ruth’s conception of wealth. Walter’s American dream sounds atypical for Blacks during that time, though based on the play some, such as the Munchinson’s have obtained it. A Raisin In The Sun complicates the residential segregation = Black autonomy argument. On one hand the Youngers are living a segregated life and seem to be operating autonomously; on the other hand, they are miserable. It is plain to see that the cramped conditions that they are living in are not the only factors contributing to their sullen disposition. This is evident in the desperation present in Ruth’s voice when Mama decides that because the money is gone they will not be moving into the house in
Clybourne Park. When petitioning Mama to reconsider Ruth begs:
Lena-I’ll work...I’ll work twenty hours a day in all the kitchens in Chicago...I’ll strap my
baby on my back if I have to and scrub all the floors in America and wash all the sheets
in America if I have to-but we got to MOVE! We got to get OUT OF HERE!! (140)
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Ruth is absolutely frantic and inconsolable at this moment which leads the audience to understand that it is not just about space. It is bigger than that. For the Youngers’ generational wealth is at stake, pride is at stake, peace of mind and opportunity are all at stake.
As alluded to earlier, this discussion ultimately boils down to a critique of capitalism.
There is no getting around the ways capitalism is intimately intertwined with white supremacy, starting with chattel slavery and continuing on into the present. Chattel slavery had its roots in capitalism. Slaves were regarded as property that could be bought, sold, bred, and willed off, which not only stripped them of their humanity but also succeeded in making them a commodity which the foundation of the United States is built upon. Pulling Black women back into the conversation surrounding capitalism, Collins reminds readers that West African women who were relegated to slavery “became economically exploited, politically powerless units of labor” due to their “forced incorporation into a capitalist political economy” (56). This offers some perspective when thinking about Black women using capitalism to their advantage in the marketplace and other spaces. Coates argues that because of the embedded racism that makes up the fabric of capitalism the “American Dream” is inherently inaccessible to Black people:
The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I
have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.
But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding
made from our bodies. (11)
Coates is speaking within the tradition of Black intellectual radicalism, and embedded in his argument is the assertion that Black bodies being used as forms of currency has effectively barred Black people from full participation in the dream. The tradition of Black intellectual radicalism is one that began hundreds of years before Coates and (in the United States) was most
66 notably pushed forward by Du Bois. According to Cedric J. Robinson, the Black, radical intelligentsia, whose roots grew out of the Black petit bourgeoisie, had their ideological construction reach its maturity by the end of the nineteenth century (191). This means that Du
Bois’ knowledge-making came right on the heels of the maturation of this way of thinking for
Blacks in the United States. As Robinson articulates it, “the radicalization of Du Bois took place during a historical period characterized by a reintensification of the suppression of Black in the
United States and the subsequent massive Black response” (194). I argue that the same is true of
Coates and others in that there appears to be a current awakening amongst Black folk which has spurred a new Black intellectual radicalism.
Implicit in Coates’ above sentiment about “the Dream” is a speak back to Hughes’
“Harlem” and a pragmatic answer to the question, “what happens to a dream deferred?’. A
Raisin In The Sun serves as Hansberry’s response to Hughes’ question and just like anything else it comes with its own set of problems, many of which have already been outlined, but the crux of the issue is embedded in Mr. Lindner’s proposition to the Younger’s.
Karl Lindner is a member of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association who took it upon himself to show up at the Younger residence with intentions of dissuading their move. His argument is framed as one that has been crafted entirely out of concern for the wellbeing of the
Youngers by bringing up the fact that there had been less than favorable interactions between
Blacks living in all-white neighborhoods and their neighbors. He assures the Youngers that not only do the members of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association “deplore that kind of thing but [they] are trying to do something about it” (116). This phrasing could nearly lead one to believe that Lindner is referring to some form of community activism when in reality he is offering to buy the house that Mama has purchased at a higher price than what she initially paid
67 for it. What is striking about this section of the play is that Lindner’s argument holds water. The core of what he is saying is not absolutely wrong, though it was certainly rooted in racist motivations. He asserts that the residents of Clybourne Park “feel that people get along better, take more of a common interest in the life of the community, when they share a common background [and] Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities” (118).
What Hansberry does here is intriguing because Lindner makes a good point. Though he is speaking from the perspective of the white residents of Clybourne Park the contents of his speech are not wholly abhorrent and in fact, lie at the heart of this thesis. In his book,
Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities, Carl Nightingale asserts that “segregationists in
Northern US cities liked to contrast their supposedly moderate racial policies with Southerners’ rabidly racist ones” (307). This is evident in Hansberry’s depiction of Lindner’s approach to the
Younger’s as well as in numerous accounts from other Black citizens who were asked to move away from white spaces.
Meyer makes the point that “homeownership can symbolize social commitment rather than just a financial commitment” (2) This is apparent—albeit grossly— in Lindner's willingness to buy the Youngers out of their investment with interest. The concept of homeownership being a communal investment is integral to the conversation involving daily living amongst white folk.
Meyer speaks of “home” serving as a place of refuge for Blacks to escape racial mistreatment and paradoxically a symbol of independence that “has come to represent individual rights and freedom from outside interference” (3). The reason this is paradoxical for Black folk rest within the definition. How can one bask in the rights and freedom that “home” is lauded to bring if one is persistently met with outside interference from those who are supposed to be neighbors? If the social implication of “neighborhood” and the commitment it belies are as consequential as they
68 are made out to be, then it would seem as if Meyer’s evidence as to why White folks don’t want
Black folks in their neighborhoods serves as a successful argument for Black folk to pursue self- segregation. Nightingale details the ways in which poor white folk in Chicago’s slums would use community for upward mobility by “scrap[ing] together financing from friends, ethnic associations... and loan societies” (309). Because the poor whites in Chicago had built such rocky fiscal foundations, blockbusters were able to come in and convince communities that allowing Black folk to move in would depreciate property values. Blockbusters would also set up what Nightingale described as “corner minstrel shows” where they would “hire black men to stage a fight on an all-white corner” (310) or other staged scenarios that made it seem as if unruly, uncouth Blacks were invading pristine white spaces. Fear of the “negro invasion” even led some Chicagoans to repurpose the words of Booker T. Washington for their own propaganda while putting down civil rights leaders like Du Bois and those aligned with him (312). In response to the minstrel shows and other propaganda put on by blockbusters, a writer for the
Hyde Park Property Owner’s Journal wrote that “the place for a Negro aristocrat is in a Negro neighborhood” (312). Ultimately, the journalist made a valid point, but his conclusions were born out of racist and xenophobic ideals whereas the conclusions that may be found in
Hansberry’s work were birthed out of self-preservation.
Though Blacks may not have had access to the same kinds of community resources that white folks had, they were able to rely on each other in other ways that required them to come together for the good of the group. During the summer of 1919, deemed “the Red Summer,”
Chicago’s Black Belt experienced race riots throughout its neighborhoods. In the midst of the chaos and violence Blacks developed “[h]omegrown systems of neighborhood defense [that] kept most inhabitants of the Black Belt safe” (Nightingale 316). However Black people who
69 resided in predominantly white Chicago neighborhoods such as Hyde Park and Englewood were more susceptible to race-related violence as they did not benefit from the same intraracial protections that those who lived in all-Black neighborhoods did.
Another reason whites were so reluctant to share neighborhoods with Blacks rests in the
“presence of small numbers of [Blacks] who could signal their economic independence from whites” in how they dressed, what they drove and so on which “added to the sense of white victimization and moral outrage” in people, especially poor whites (Nightingale 304). This speaks to another motive behind neighborhood segregation and offers an example of how whites needed to feel superior in every way and thus worked to keep Blacks out of their neighborhoods and actively tried to intimidate and run Black folks out of the neighborhood when given the chance. This is described in Raisin by Mrs. Johnson as she questions the Youngers on the location of their upcoming move.
Hansberry allows Lindner’s monologue to not only make sense but also serve as a veiled response to the call of “what happens to a dream deferred”? Though the family's reaction to
Lindner would seem to suggest Hansberry’s decry of Lindner’s proposals, I assert that by including it in the way that she did it is, on the contrary, a letter of recommendation: agreement but with a difference. Hansberry is aware of the ties capitalism has to white supremacy and how these two ideals work together to keep families like the Youngers in places like the small two- bedroom apartment in Chicago, which means the only logical place to relocate would be in an all-white neighborhood such as Clybourne Park. But I posit that Hansberry uses Lindner to plant the seed of unity, collectivism, and autonomous living in the minds of her readers and audiences in the same way that Coates writes so passionately about “The Mecca.” There is the agreement; the difference lies in motivation. Lindner’s motivations for suggesting that the Youngers may be
70 happier living amongst other Black people comes from a place of racism and desiring separation on the premise of assumed superiority. Hansberry, Hurston, Morrison’s motivations come from a place of self-preservation and desire to thrive amongst one's own.
Meyer claims that “a century of discrimination, obstruction, intimidation, and violence underlies the current circumstance of residential racism” (1). This sheds light on the reality that for years Black folks have willingly segregated themselves as protection and as a means to avoid excess prejudice. Hansberry uses a Black voice to expose the volatile relationships between
Blacks living in all-white areas in the person of Mrs. Johnson whose claims are later corroborated by Mr. Lindner. While chatting with Mama, Mrs. Johnson casually asks her if she heard “bout’ them colored people that was bombed out their place” (100) in Clybourne Park and goes on to muse, rather sarcastically, that:
Ain’t it something how bad these here white folks is getting here in Chicago! Lord,
getting so you think you right down in Mississippi! (With a tremendous and rather
insincere sense of melodrama) ‘Course I thinks it’s wonderful how our folks keeps on
pushing out. You hear some of these Negroes ‘round here talking ‘bout how they don’t
go where they ain’t wanted and all that—but not me, honey! (This is a lie). (100)
Hansberry uses this character to ask the question that festers in the minds of readers and audiences when encountering this play: where is the joy or victory in moving into a neighborhood where one is not wanted and is also putting the safety of one’s family at risk? By having Mrs. Johnson shadily and with only the faintest flecks of true concern inquire after the
Younger’s motivations, Hansberry primes the audience to think outside of the danger and potential for disaster and realize the bigger picture that includes exercising one’s right to live amongst white folk while still maintaining Blackness and autonomy.
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Hansberry does not only use oppositional voices in the text to get her main point across.
The character of Asagai seems to represent the positive side of the argument and presents the possibilities of what could be when Black people are removed from the machinery of white supremacy and capitalism and in this way he stands out as the Garveyan figure in the play. While
Beneatha is bemoaning the monetary mistakes of her brother to Asagai, he asks her about the money and its origins. He points out that it was their father who earned the money—not them as a collective and muses that there must be “something wrong in a house-in a world where all dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man” (135). Beneatha proceeds to beg
Asagai for an answer to the dilemma and he passionately responds that he lives the answer. He dives into a monologue about how well life was for him and those around him back in Africa and pleads with her to realize that maybe someday “there will be young men and women-not British soldiers then, but [his] own Black countrymen—to step out of the shadows some evening and slit
[his] then useless throat” (136). Here it is important to note that he is referring to Blacks living in the United States. This is evident by the next bit of dialogue between the pair where he suggests to her that the answer is her coming home with him to Africa (136). Hansberry juxtaposes the character of Munchinson, who is very assimilationist, with Asagai who is portrayed more along the lines of a separatist. Asagai is consistently seeking ways of and means by which Black people can participate in autonomous living: this is most obviously displayed by his promoting a literal return to Africa. It can be argued that a segregated, autonomous upbringing brought about this way of thinking which is similar to the ideologies held by Zora Neale Hurston. Perhaps
Hansberry’s assessment and my own interpretation of the solution are beyond reach because they are centered in the dream of a Utopia.
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After the dust has settled, Walter attempts to correct his mistake by calling Mr. Lindner and asking him to come back to the house as the Youngers are now ready to accept his offer.
This news comes much to the chagrin of his family, who decries what he has done and berates him with a ferociousness that proves that this is far worse than him initially losing the money.
When Mama remarks that this makes her want to cry and has spurred an awful pain inside of her
Walter responds:
Don’t cry, Mama. Understand. That white man is going to walk in that door able to write
checks for more money than we ever had. It’s important to him and I’m going to help
him...I’m going to put on the show Mama. (142)
Mama promptly responds that she comes from several generations of slaves and sharecroppers but none of them had ever been poor enough to sell their dignity in such a way that certainly indicated that they were dead inside. When she questions him on how doing this is going to make him feel he responds that he is going to feel fine—like a man. What proceeds is Walter literally mimicking the shuck and jive routine that he is planning to put on for Mr. Linder which ultimately culminates with him on his knees in a feigned position of subjugation assuring
Lindner that they “ain’t gwine come out deh and dirty up [the] white folks neighborhood” (144).
The notion of Walter “putting on a show” for a white man to get his money back and more is seen by his family (and is supposed to be seen by the audience as well) as morally reprehensible and a stain on the Younger’s pride. But would it be possible for them to exist and thrive in an all- white space such as Clybourne Park without having to constantly put on a show? Here it is helpful to remember that this text is a play that is meant to be seen. In the 1961 film adaptation,
Sidney Poitier plays the part of Walter and does an immaculate job of portraying the absolute desperation that provokes his character to act in this way. When reading it on the page it is easy
73 to just quickly gloss over the words as the ramblings of someone who realizes they have made a grave mistake, but watching the performance adds an entirely new dimension wherein the audience can witness the downward spiral that Walter takes himself on.
Throughout the play, Walter is constantly trying to assert himself as a man in an attempt to prove his humanity. Anytime he gets into a verbal altercation with his family he points out that he is a man and that is the driving force behind whatever it is that he is doing or has done. The
Youngers reaction to his decision to take Lindner’s money was extreme, overblown, and exaggerated, to say the least. In the end, Walter refuses Lindner’s offer and chooses pride and generational wealth over implicit self-degradation, but I argue that Hansberry offered glimpses of other potential options but all things considered the Youngers did the best they could with the cards they were dealt.
What is supremely evident about the text, however, is Raisin seems to be Hansberry’s attempt at “reconciling the fact of her blackness with the equally plain fact of her privileged upbringing” (Cheney 8). It is no surprise that larger than life figures such as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois were regular guests at the Hansberry home. Their influences can easily be detected in Raisin with the most obvious being the title of the play. Worth noting is Du Bois’s eventual writing signified a look back to Africa and the heritage that lay there, which Hansberry eventually came back to as well. Both of these artists had beginnings rooted in making it work with white folks in an integrationist way and ended with an identity that was centered in building with, for, and among Black folk. Towards the end of her life, Hansberry pondered on comfort and the dilemma of writing as opposed to or in tandem with revolutionary action. In her autobiography an excerpt from her journal reads as such:
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Have the feeling I should throw myself back into the movement...But that very impulse is
immediately flushed with a thousand vacillations and forbidding images...Comfort has
come to be its own corruption...Comfort. Apparently I have sold my soul for it. I think
when I get my health back I shall go to the south to find out what kind of revolutionary I
am”. (xix)
Black feminist scholar, Latoya Johnson argues that “the production of Black women’s knowledge can be a form of activism or social justice word” (233) in and of itself. She contends that activism and scholarship are not mutually exclusive and that they work together to inform each other. In the same way, Collins holds space in her book for a discussion of the way prevailing understandings of what qualifies as activism and resistance can lead to a misunderstanding about how these concepts play a part in Black women’s lives (217). She disputes the notion that Black women’s activism should be judged “by the ideological content of individual Black women’s belief systems” and replaces it with the opinion that it is more useful to access Black women’s activism based on their “collective actions within everyday life” (218).
She brings this up after making the argument that self-preservation and group survival, no matter what that looks like has always been in the fabric of Black women’s activism. Understanding this thinking allows us to contextualize Hansberry’s uneasiness about her perceived valuing of comfort over activism. What Hansberry, Morrison, and Hurston were all doing was crafting
“Black female spheres of influence that resist oppressive structures by undermining them”
(Collins 219). I have taken to referring to this as “creative segregation”.
Cheney asserts that Du Bois chose to illuminate Black folks and their struggles by way of his intellectual writing and anthropological research while Hughes “pursued his art and ⸺ when forced to choose ⸺left the struggle to others” (54). This struggle is reinforced in Raisin
75 and speaks back to the fact that Hughes “did not allow himself...to become primarily involved in the political struggle for racial equality” (53). None of this to infer Hansberry neglected her
African roots or her considerations of Black autonomy— as is evident in the character of Joseph
Asagai; however, all of the previous combined with her upbringing and early political leanings colored her perception of housing integration. In a 1959 letter to her mother, Hansberry wrote that Raisin was a play that was meant to “tell the truth about people '' (Cheney 55). Ultimately it would be unreasonable to assume that Hansberry’s intentions were to paint the Youngers in a state of blind, ethereal happiness but rather to capture the essence of Black aspirations.
The focus of the play is not segregation, prejudice, or even the damaging effects of racism; rather, it is an examination of what happens at the crossroads between searching for autonomy and perpetuating personhood. In a 1959 letter written to her mother shortly before the opening of her play, Hansberry assessed that Raisin “is a play that tells the truth about people,
Negroes and life” (109). She went on to say that the play was meant to show that Black folks are capable of having lives that are just as nuanced and complicated as anybody else and for this result created the “essence of human dignity” (109). Though the ultimate solution to the sub-par living conditions faced by the Youngers concluded in them moving into an all-white space,
Hansberry did not neglect their autonomy in the process of forming this narrative. She used her own experiences and the boundaries established by capitalism to allow the Youngers to maintain their choices and work within the system available to them. This being said, it is congruently possible to argue that the Youngers could have still taken Lindner’s offer and with that money move into a predominantly Black neighborhood and lived just as well and probably better. This, however, boils down to a debate about what qualifies one as having forfeited his or her own dignity.
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Conclusion
Though they all went about it differently, the Black female authors centered in this thesis all sought to inform a type of Black autonomy. Hurston’s use of the vernacular makes Their Eyes feel like home for Black folk and serves as a calling card. It is something that connects us.
Hurston’s recognition of this reads as an understanding that this mode of language is a part of
Black culture that was formed from chattel slavery and in some ways acts as a stand in for the native African languages that were lost. She used her personal experience based on the conditions she grew up in to build the concept of Black autonomous living in Their Eyes. In many ways her novel mirrored her experience, which ultimately colored the way she viewed integration. Hurston upheld the sanctity of all-Black spaces by privileging them as the main settings in Their Eyes and she did this without exaggerating them but rather by giving readers an honest look at their interiority, which is something that can also be observed in Morrison’s piece.
What is special about this is the fact that the all-Black city of Eatonville exists as a background character itself. It has its own feel, its own personality, one might even say it has its own ways about it. But what is most intriguing is the way that Hurston uses it to contain Black autonomous living in a passive way. By this I mean that while it is mentioned that Eatonville is all-Black the emphasis is not continuously on that detail. The people in that town have normal lives with normal stories, and in the end all of this just boils down to their being people. Eatonville being segregated the way that it is is certainly important but it is not the main thing. It is not something
77 that Hurston has to keep bringing up or reminding the audience of: it just is. It is an authentically
Black, exclusively Black place and text, and that is what makes it great.
Hurston’s biographical experience also serves to refute the notion of semi-successful segregation in the United States being ahistorical. This is important because looking forward, when we consider past, present, and future implications for integrated society, it is crucial not to gloss over historical instances of segregation that benefitted Black people. In the same vein we need to ask ourselves why segregation was not successful or wholly beneficial for Black people.
This thesis chips away at the answer to that question.
Morrison presents a Black family who essentially resides in autonomy but is also bombarded by whiteness from the outside. Whether it is the literal white gaze of the hunters on
Cholly and Rosemary’s gaze on the girls or the figurative white gaze that causes Polly to question her own beauty, it is prevalent in this text for a reason. By setting up readers to understand the “American Dream” as an ideal created for white folk, Morrison exposes the fault that lies in the desire to reach this goal that was designed for some Americans but not others. For this reason, it was fitting to pull Ta-Nehisi Coates into the conversation because of his similar understanding of “the Dream.” Coates’ reading of “the Dream” juxtaposed with his reality pairs well with Morrison’s readings of the same. The racial problem that exists in this country is one that is never ending: politicians and scholars alike are always looking for a viable solution to it.
These authors offer readers an alternative way of viewing “the Dream” that is absolutely necessary for future considerations as they are related to race.
Raisin concludes the body of this thesis and is the longest section for obvious reasons.
Hansberry’s piece directly tackles the issue that lies at the heart of this thesis. For the sake of transparency, I must admit that my first approach to writing about this play was primarily dealing
78 with it in opposition. In other words, attempting to refute what seemed like Hansberry’s integrationist worldview. But after doing research (biographical and otherwise) I came to understand that Raisin and Hansberry’s personal motives required a nuanced examination.
Making the assumption that Hansberry was misled in her ideology based on the trajectory of her plot would have been nothing less than shortsighted. While it is true that the Younger’s yearned for and eventually achieved integration into a white neighborhood, there was certainly more going on in the narrative. Beyond fleshing out some of the occurrences that took place during her childhood, Hansberry uses Raisin to present conversations that were being volleyed back and forth within the community regarding race. This is evident in the character of Joseph Asagai who represented the Garveyite figure and in George Munchinson who was more of a Booker T.
Washington, Du Bois hybrid of sorts. Because this play was released in 1958, during the swell of the civil rights movement, the integration issue likely would have been at the forefront of everyone’s mind. At that time, general consensus among Black folk was that integration represented a step in the right direction and certainly this is reflected in the play.
All three of these pieces and their authors were from different times and places; however, there are some common threads that run through all of them. The most obvious general similarity is that all the pieces place emphasis on the interiority of the Black woman. It is no coincidence that the authors of the works are themselves Black women and therefore allowed the focal point of their works to be Black women. When thinking about this, it can be useful to revisit Collin’s first tenet of Black feminist thought, which centers the “formation of a group-based, collective standpoint” (28). The major leg of this tenet, which is “recognition of how ties between experience and consciousness impact the everyday lives of Black women” (Johnson 236) while simultaneously acknowledging that there are offshoots within Black women’s collective
79 standpoints, help us understand the Black, female centered nature of the text while also coming to terms with the fact that Hurston and Hansberry can come up with opposite solutions to the same problem.
Discussions of integration and segregation may seem like topics best suited for historical conversations of the past, but these are subjects that are still of importance today. Race seems to be a theme that is always at the forefront of American conversation in practically every field and therefore, thinking about the ways in which integration has and continues to impact this country is never impractical. It is my understanding that most scholars have arrived at the conclusion that integration was beneficial for Blacks and the U.S. as a whole, but I would counter that notion with literature. The questions that have been posed in this thesis are the ones we should be asking if we claim to have Black people’s interests at heart. In the same way that
Hurston, Morrison, and Hansberry revealed the interiority of Blackness, why not ask actual
Black people how they interpret integration? If not in person certainly by way of their writing. It is my belief that there is more work to be done on this topic, and that literature is a great place to start. It is my hope that this thesis has added something of substance to this conversation and that perhaps—one day— the script that has been written about integration and segregation can be rewritten to include the viewpoints of those who have troubled the waters surrounding these ideologies.
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