Of Mules and Mamas: Four Women, Africana Mothering, and Resistance
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University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2019 Of Mules and Mamas: Four Women, Africana Mothering, and Resistance Ebony Olivia Lumumba University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Lumumba, Ebony Olivia, "Of Mules and Mamas: Four Women, Africana Mothering, and Resistance" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1629. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1629 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OF MULES AND MAMAS: FOUR WOMEN, AFRICANA MOTHERING, & RESISTANCE A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English The University of Mississippi by EBONY OLIVIA LUMUMBA December 2018 Copyright Ebony Lumumba 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The black woman’s humanity is unjustly linked to domestic responsibility and, thus, the traditional constraints of mothering. The roles of the mother and the created archetype of the mammy often become marred with the latter role overtaking the former—leaving black children without full benefit and access to their biological maternal parent. With the pervasive threat to black lives present in spaces all over the globe, for women of the African Diaspora, simply deciding to accept the role of a mother to a life that is physically, socially, and economically under siege is revolutionary. Considering this, the act of mothering, especially for women of color, exists as a potentially radical and revolutionary act which moves the effects of mothering beyond children, beyond traditional roles, and into the universe—making mothering limitless. This project focuses specifically on the mothering practices of black women that resist the oppressive systems designed to disenfranchise them and their communities. In this analysis, I engage the presence of black mothering as a revolutionary tool of resistance of systematic oppressions in Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Lorene Cary’s The Price of a Child, Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child, and Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. KEYWORDS: Mothering, Motherhood, Resistance, Liberation ii DEDICATION For Grandma Ora Nell & her bone deep love. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Motherhood is power. I’m grateful to the mamas who have shared their power with me. My mama who loved without limits—you saved me. My grandmother who penetrated my very soul with her bone deep love. Her love was cake thick and it cushioned us all against what the world tried to do to us. My “other mothers”—Kenya, Joni, Mother Anderson, Mama Nubia, Rukia, Big Mama Doris, Miranda, and those others who held my hands, wiped my tears, paid my bills, held my babies, listened and listened some more—the debt I owe to you is far too large to reconcile. And to my babies—Alaké and Nubia—every heartbeat, kick, tantrum, smile, diaper change, giggle, ouchie, and “I love you, Mama” plays in my heart and makes up the soundtrack to my purpose. I’m watching you as you watch me and I’m reminded of exactly how I will survive. To my committee—Drs. Adetayo Alabi, Leigh Anne Duck, Annette Trefzer, & Shennette Garrett-Scott. Your guidance and support was gracious and kind. Thank you for believing in a little girl from Mississippi. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii DEDICATION iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv INTRODUCTION: NNE ANO: FOUR MOTHERS & RESISTANCE 1 CHAPTER 2: #NOTYOURMULE: MOTHERING THE COMMUNITY 24 IN THOSE BONES ARE NOT MY CHILD CHAPTER 3: MOMMY VS. MAMMY: MOTHERING BABIES IN 55 THE PRICE OF A CHILD CHAPTER 4: COUNTING CHICKENS AND CHILDREN: 99 MOTHERING THE STOMACH IN PURPLE HIBISCUS CHAPTER 5: MAMA BUCHI: THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD 138 AND BUCHI EMECHETA’S MODEL FOR TRANSNATIONAL MOTHERING RESISTANCE CONCLUSION: FOUR WOMEN RESIST 181 BIBLIOGRAPHY 195 v INTRODUCTION: NNE ANO: FOUR MOTHERS AND RESISTANCE The black woman’s humanity is unjustly linked to domestic responsibility and, thus, the traditional constraints of mothering. As a cultural archetype, the black woman endures classification rife with stereotypical characterization and marginal figuring. For centuries, patriarchy and white supremacy have relegated black women to the margins and wholly ignored the need this specific demographic has for social autonomy and freedom. It has been the expectation that black women, who are shunned for any desire to think of themselves in the struggle for social freedom, best serve the larger community by nurturing it. Thus, the concept of mothering has socially stifled them in a manner that has limited their ability to strive for a freer existence for themselves, their offspring, and their communities. As the result of the limiting expectations placed upon black women in the mothering role, the fundamental capability of the role being a model of liberation and mode of resistance is often overlooked. Buchi Emecheta, Lorene Cary, Toni Cade Bambara, and Chimamanda Adichie produce narratives that unearth black mothering as an artifice for pursuing justice. Their texts exist as literary activism which demonstrates the ways women of the African Diaspora have reimagined the singular figuring of motherhood into methods that support their identities and communities against vast inequities and systemic disenfranchisement. The mother characters in their works represent black women’s radicalization of mothering. Black women occupy a nuanced position in relation to motherhood. With the pervasive threat to black lives present in spaces all over the globe, for women of the African Diaspora, simply deciding to accept the mother role to a life that is physically, socially, and economically 1 under siege is revolutionary. Loretta J. Ross describes mothering for black women as radical for its redefinition “as investing in others’ existence […] far beyond biological determinism” (Gumbs xv). Compounding the role of motherhood with black identity complicates the experience considering the historical and vast mistreatment of black people all over the world. Understanding the broadness and heterogeneity of the Diaspora, this project focuses specifically on black mothering in Nigeria and the United States as sites where black women demonstrate mothering practices that resist the oppressive systems designed to disenfranchise them and their communities. Through the works of Africana women writers Buchi Emecheta, Lorene Cary, Toni Cade Bambara, and Chimamanda Adichie, I examine black maternal characters who, despite the seeming adoption of their lot as “mule[s] of the world,” resist the oppressive expectation that they must pack the burdens of all onto their backs in order to bring about fundamental social change and how their reimagining of such a traditional role performs a sophisticated resistance to the projected mother archetype for black women (Walker 237). Thus, I bridge the worlds of literature and activism and argue that the act of mothering, especially for women of color, exists as a potentially radical and revolutionary act which moves the effects of mothering beyond children, beyond traditional roles, and into the universe—making mothering limitless. While women across history and cultures have suffered marginalization distinctly associated with motherhood, maternal identity serves as a vital component in the imaging of black women within patriarchal narratives. The manifestation of the mother role may differ depending on culture, but the black woman as the ideal, powerless mother-figure possesses global breadth. Authors spanning various cultures and communities have peopled their texts with black women who occupy the role of a mother. I examine the works of all four women writers and assert a 2 transnational intertextuality as it relates to their inclusion of the mothering trope as a covert projection of Africana feminist power that subverts social repression. There is a conversation within the canon of black women’s writing that centers on the mothering trope as a clearly defined archetype built by dominant culture that is projected predominately onto women of African descent. Yet, instead of exhibiting the traits generally tied to black motherhood, the mother characters in The Joys of Motherhood (Emecheta), The Price of a Child (Cary), Those Bones Are Not My Child (Bambara), and Purple Hibiscus (Adichie) perform what Carolyn Gerald might designate as a “deliberate desecration and smashing of idols” that repurposes the repressive archetype of the black woman as a mere caretaker of children, nurse to the elderly, and provider of victuals. The black female writers in this study respond to this complicated and problematic notion of image-making in relation to the black woman in a way that transgresses the racist and sexist social strictures plaguing black women specifically with the revision of the black mother figure. Instead of engaging the trope of motherhood to further disenfranchise the black woman, these four writers illustrate agency in each of the seemingly powerless black female characters in three distinct areas of mothering—1) mothering the community; 2) mothering babies; and 3) mothering the stomach. Each mother character in Cary, Bambara, and Adichie’s novels enacts her distinct brand of motherhood through one of these three distinct categories. Emecheta’s