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[dddubose]

Depression, Black Superwoman Syndrome, and Suicide

She was the founder of For Brown Girls and, later, the #DarkSkinRedLip Project, as well as several online movements celebrating…

                                     Suffering Alone

She Tried to withdraw as she’d been doing for weeks and weeks. Withdraw the self to a safe place where husband, lover, teacher, workers, no one could follow, probe.

All Velma could summon now before her eyes were the things of her kitchen, those things she’d sought while hunting for the end. Leaves, grasses, buds dry but alive and still in jars stuffed with cork, alive but inert on the shelf of oak, alive but arrested over the stove next to the match box she’s reached toward out of habit, forgetting she did not want the fire, she only wanted the gas.

In The Salt Eaters Velma seems to be a women of great strength. She’s a community activist, has a wonderful career, a husband and son who she loves and who loves her right? So in some peoples eyes she had a great life.  However, Velma’s life was not all what it seemed. She was suffering from severe depression but no one noticed until it was too late and she ended up in an infirmary after trying to take her own life. Often in the African American Community things such as depression and mental illness go unnoticed until it is to late. For African American women who are supposed to be the pillar of strength, the mother figure, the one every body can depend on it can become too much. However, the African American women often have no help coping because if depression is mentioned they are told to pray and let God handle it. They are often discouraged from seeking the medical treatment they need.  African American women are treated like superwomen and the article that I am sharing tells the sad story of how two African American women that everyone assumed had everything going right killed themselves. It it like when a black woman is depressed she has to find some type of way to deal with the problem as often she doesn’t want to be shunned by the people in her own community. I plan to obtain my PhD in Psychology and I have often had people in my family question my decision to become a psychologist, insisting that black people don’t believe in that mess. It is a sad shame that so many African American women have had to suffer alone and have even taken their own lives because they never sought help. I feel that African Americans really need to become aware that mental illness is real and that it is okay to seek help if they are suffering. But if they never seek the help we will continue to see suicide rates increase in the African American community. 

[nabilahwrites-blog]

Nice post - I have to say that the Arab American community also stigmatizes mental illnesses. I can imagine how devastating it is for women suffering from illnesses to be marginalized by their community if they sought help. Stigmatizing mental illnesses and looking down on women who seek help creates significant issues in our society. Not too long ago, there was an incident in my hometown Dearborn where a man was shot and killed by someone he angered during a basketball game. I imagine that if our community was more open about seeking psychological help, the situation could have been prevented. Like your post acknowledges, there’s this unrealistic expectation for women to achieve some sort of perfection - if they show weakness in any aspect of their lives, they are shunned. This pressure causes women to harm themselves. Bambara’s novel really asks us to consider the different sites of violence that society creates. 

[ravenannalove-blog]

In reading Trudier Harris’s “This Disease Called Strength: Some Observations on the Compensating Construction of Black Female Characters,” one must consider the plight of the African American author to write at all. Toni Morrison, who Harris mentions within the essay, is well known for her dynamic black female characters and for her novels that push the boundaries of racial tension in surreal realities. In this interview, Morrison discusses the pressure imposed upon her to make what she refers to as “the white gaze” the dominant presence in her novels. Within the short clip, Morrison brought up several points that tie in directly to what Harris was getting at, and even expands upon the issue a bit. Toni Morrison was once asked when she’ll stop writing about race and why she excludes white characters from her novels. Looking deeper into that question, it would appear that the suggestion is that a “white voice” within the novel would somehow legitimize the work. That without such a presence, it can’t be taken seriously and won’t be palatable for the masses. Having as much credibility in the field as she does, it’s telling that even a writer of Morrison’s esteem would face such criticism and be subjected to that kind of pressure. Yet such is the dilemma of the African American writer in general. To put marginalized people at the forefront and to write about the things that impact them is being too exclusionary. However, the white gaze would make it universal? No matter what road the African American writer chooses to trot down, there will inevitably be some burden to bear. They simply cannot win.          

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[nabilahwrites-blog]

Such a great video and fantastic post. It generated a really nice discussion in class. I hadn’t thought about the conscious decisions black and African American writers must make to avoid the white gaze in their works. It’s disturbing just how adamant some people are with there being a white presence in novels by or about African Americans - as though the identity of a black person is only configured through whiteness. 

[sdassanayake7-blog]

“A Bunch of Birds Doing What Birds Do.”

http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2014/06/08/lens-on-detroit-controversial-mens-rights-group-draws-protest/

On June 7, 2014, protesters insisted that Detroit’s Hilton Double-Tree Hotel cancel the Voice for Men International Conference on Men’s Issues due to the group’s notoriously “misogynistic” agenda and “dismissive [views regarding] sexual violence” (Neavling). According to Wayne State student of gender and culture, Kelly Jackson, Voice for Men is essentially “a hate group” ( Abbey-Lambertz). However, despite the presence of over 200 protesters and a petition of over 1,000 signatures calling for the cancellation of the conference, Voice for Men founder, Paul Elam, remained calm, encouraging protesters to “‘buy a ticket, come in and have a seat and let [Voice for Men]help you earn your way out of your ignorance’” (Abbey-Lambertz). 

Elam’s condescending attitude towards the feminist cause and the Hilton Double-Tree’s lengthy deliberation on the issue reflect years of failure to take the women’s rights movement seriously. In Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, we see a similar response to Velma Henry and her fellow activists. Near the start of the novel, we see how the group’s driver, Fred Holt, views their rapid movement from one sociopolitical discussion to next as reason to refer them to a “good psychiatrist” (Bambara 67). Furthermore, when he witnesses the women partaking in traditionally masculine tasks like “[taking] apart machines” and handling cameras, he interprets the activities as implicitly sexual and perverse (Bambara 68). 

Although people have grown increasingly receptive to feminist ideology since the time period during which The Salt Eaters is set, clearly we have a long way to go. 

Abbey-Lambertz, Kate. “Controversial Men’s Right’s Conference Sparks Backlash.” Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 30 May 2014. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.

Bambara, Toni Cade. The Salt Eaters. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1980. Print.

Neavling, Steve. “Lens on Detroit: Controversial Men’s Rights Group Draws Protest.” Motor City Muckracker. Motor City Muckracker, 8 June 2014. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.

[nabilahwrites-blog]

We certainly do! I like your connections here. Fred Holt’s comment certainly points to the inherent misogyny in our society - the moment a woman steps outside of the “boundaries” prescribed to her, she is regarded as insane or sexually perverse. Bambara’s novel exposes these various social pressures that drive women like Velma to hurt themselves. I think Velma has to acknowledge it in order to heal, too. Ugh, not much has changed :/ 

[nabilahwrites-blog]

'Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?'

Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters

[circacarolyn-blog]

The “hitch in the giddy-up”

American Planning Association Planning & Environmental Law November 2011 Vol. 63, No. 11 I p.3

Commentary Heir Property: A Constraint for Planners, an Opportunity for Communities

The Legacy of Steve Larkin

                                                                                                Craig H. Baab

Not much is known about Steve Larkin. He left South Carolina as a freed slave and migrated to Cuba, Alabama, where over time he accumulated upwards of 900 acres of the fertile Black Belt where Cuba is situated, just across the border from Meridian, Mississippi. He married and apparently had one child, Bryant. While hundreds of his living heirs know little of him, they today bear witness to the tangled legal ownership that land causes today. Steve Larkin’s family heritage and continuing story will serve as a real-life framework for planners to better understand the constraints of heir property in their work, as well as the opportunity it presents to strengthen communities.

SCOPE:

What does this mean to the owners of heir property? Each owner’s fractional percentage interest of the entire property does not entitle that person to sell their percentage interest of the actual land. Rather, since that person and all of the other fractional owners have an undivided interest in the entire piece of land, no single owner has the right to sell the land without the agreement of all other owners. However, each owner is able to sell their percentage interest in the land. Let’s begin with a simple example. Grandma and Grandpa owned 100 acres they purchased and for which they had a valid deed. They died in an accident, leaving four offspring. They died without a will, or intestate, in which case state law generally determines a decedent’s heirs-at-law to be a spouse, offspring, sisters and brothers, parents, and the offspring of each of these categories. Furthermore, while state law and the courts will determine who inherits an interest in the 100 acres, none of those owners will have their name on a formal deed.

Discussion of “Heir Property: A Constraint for Planners, an Opportunity for Communities” can be found at: http://blogs.planning.org/ policy/2011/09/26/pel-november-2011/ public at large.

The land Steve Larkin passed to his heirs upon his death is often referred to as heir property, heirs property, family land, or heirs-locked land. Technically, that land  is tenancy in-common land, the most widespread type of land ownership in the United States. The name refers to the fact that the tenants or owners of that land each have the responsibility to pay taxes and otherwise contribute to the upkeep of the property. Consequently, none of today’s heirs have “clear title” to the land— that is, none has the ability to identify a discrete parcel of the whole that they own exclusively, since they all own the entire parcel together. The grandparents are the last recorded deed owners, even though their descendants now have ownership rights in the land. The grandparents’ 100 acres is owned by 12 descendants, with their respective ownership interest ranging from ¼ to 1/8 to 1/16 to 1/32 and finally to 1/64. Despite those widely varying interests, each has the same right as the others to live on and use the entire 100 acres— which is why their ownership interest is referred to as an “undivided fractional interest” in the entire 100 acres. The dollar amount relative to the value of $100,000: ¼ interest would be worth $25,000; 1/8 interest $12,500; 1/16 share $6,250;  1/32 interest $3,125, and 1/64 share would be valued at $1,562.50. However, the heir owning a percentage interest nominally worth $1562.50, has the same right to use the entire 100 acres as that heir with an interest theoretically valued at $25,000.

Research to date has uncovered some 148 living descendants of Steve Larkin’s six grandchildren. Some 30 appear to be heirs-at-law whose current inheritable interests range from 1/6 to 1/48 to 1/72 to 1/144 of the entire 120 acres. However, these interests are not directly transferable into cash, since if any individual wished to sell the entire property, or sell timber off the property, all would have to concur regardless of how small their interest. The  family began to better comprehend the benefits of retaining the land as a family asset.

                                                ********

Throughout the novel Mama Day by Gloria Naylor, the importance of holding onto the land is one of the dominant themes. Beginning with the matriarch, Sapphira Wade, a slave, who “persuaded Bascombe Wade,” her slave master, “to deed all his slaves every inch of land in Willow Springs…” (Naylor 3). Sapphira knew that land ownership was something that would last.   

In the above article, taken from an incident in my hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, the subject of land ownership is the debate. Who owns what and how much do they own? The article makes it clear that heir property cannot be sold by an individual and even though each descendant has a share, the land itself is all one piece.

My oldest son is interested in putting up a trailer on this in-common land in Meridian and he has the right to do it because I am paying taxes on the land. The land was left to me by my father and left to my father by his mother and father, who purchased the land. The only advantage for the other family members to him doing this would be that their taxes would decrease because he would have to pay the taxes on the land that his trailer occupies. To date, all of my family sees the importance of keeping this asset in the family and no one is clamoring to sell the land. However, being heir property, before any sale can be made, everyone must agree. That is the “hitch in the giddy-up”! 

[nabilahwrites-blog]

What is so fascinating about heir property is that it indicates the importance of community and family. We see strong communal ties explicated in Naylor’s novel and these ties solidify the continued success of Willow Springs. What ties everyone together is the ownership of and love for the land and its potential. 

[zestyzeinabeng5480-blog]

Bill of Sale and Discrediting Women

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife Of Bath’s Prologue.” Poetry In Translation. N.p., 2007. Web.

Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988. Print.

The novel “Mama Day” opens with a bill of sale of Sapphira to a Mister Bascombe Wade. While this bill of sale is disconcerting for many reasons, one of the main things that strikes me is a technique that was often used in literature to discredit women from any positive attributes being given to them. In the sale, the seller attempts to make the woman being sold sound more appealing in order to make the sale. Essentially, he describes her in a positive way for her own benefit. However, it is almost as if the seller wants to discredit any good qualities Sapphire may when in the closing statement he says, “Has served on occasion in the capacity of midwife and nurse, not without extreme mischief and suspicions of delving in witchcraft.” The significance of this statement is in one sentence the seller gives the woman being sold credibility, but at the very same time, he takes it away again. Since this is a false bill of sale made by the author, and is about a woman, I am inclined to believe that Naylor is attempting to prove that a woman’s intellect and capabilities are often concealed by men. Beyond this, men often discredit any positive attributes of a woman and tend to instead ridicule and demonize them. This is seen here with the fact that even though Sapphira may have acted as a nurse and midwife before, she was still accused of mischief and witchcraft. The same issue of tearing down any attempt of a woman rising and feminism is seen in “The Canterbury Tales,” specifically “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.”

In “The Canterbury Tales,” the Wife of Bath is often seen as one of the first feminists in literature. However, her credentials as such are discredited by the author’s language and the dialogue between her and the male characters. She, too, is accused in the prologue of being a wicked woman. One of her ex-husbands in the tale accuses her and all women of being the same evil creatures who play evil tricks and games in order to entrap all men. Although Sapphira and the Wife of Bath were both uneducated through an actual school system, the two women were still very knowledgable and had characteristics of feminists. However, they are discredited through the authors’ demonization and even dehumanization of women in Sapphira’s case. This is significant because it indicates that women, even the capable and knowledgable, will not be given credit and cannot be seen as on par with men in many literary works.

[nabilahwrites-blog]

A Bill of Sale in general demeans women and men and strips them of their autonomy. I like your attention to its potential to conceal a woman’s intellect and capabilities. Although what I find ironic here is that a Bill of Sale *should* advertise capabilities in order to be economically attractive. Slaves were sold as commodities and the slave in question must be of good “use.” Naylor’s Bill of Sale challenges this typical representation and instead, forces us to consider Sapphira’s resistance as a form of empowerment. 

[dddubose]

In the beginning of Mama Day we see the family tree of Sapphira Wade a family tree that begins with her name first. The family tree is of great importance especially in the black community where so much of our history, ancestry, and culture was lost during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Also, during slavery children where often taken away from there mothers and sold so this would be one reason why the family tree would be of great importance. Once slave women gave birth to a child that child was often taken from them and sold. Another issue of the family tree was the fact that only Sapphira’s name was mentioned not her children’s father. Usually a family tree consists of the father, mother, and their children. However, since her children where fathered by her slave master who was also her husband as stated, (Naylor 3) he would never have allowed his name to be listed on the birth record of children mothered by a black slave. So I included an image of a family tree because I feel that a family tree is very important in any family as it gives future generations a glimpse of where they came from, but without the mention of the father part of that persons heritage is lost.

 #Eng5480 #familytree #MamaDay

[nabilahwrites-blog]

I love that Gloria Naylor excludes the father’s name. Sapphira’s presence at the very top is empowering and indicative of the potential for black women to reclaim their names, bodies, and identities, even in the midst of struggle and abuse. I also think that the exclusion hints towards the uncertainty of the fathers. There is no “evidence” that Bascombe is the father of all Sapphira’s seven sons, but this complexity only mirrors the larger theme of the novel: the fluidity of truth. When Sapphira’s name is at the very top of the family tree, we are forced to acknowledge her presence as the matriarch and regard the father’s presence as insignificant - I think this just destabilizes the power structures of the master/slave relationship that seeks to demean black people, and in particular, black women. Naylor’s novel does such a fantastic job at reclaiming/rewriting the painful narratives/documents of the past!

[dddubose]

Raped And Pregnant At 12-Years-Old, This Girl Made a Surprising Choice

... if she had to go through the horror of her rape all over again...

Reading Breath, Eyes, Memory,we learn that Sophie is the product of a brutal rape so I decided to focus my piece on women who became pregnant and kept their child after a rape. I was deeply moved by this being a woman who was raped I don’t know if I could have been this strong had a pregnancy occurred. Sophie’s mother who lives in New York sends for her daughter after nine years and Sophie does not want to go because she barely knows her. Her Aunt Tante Atie tells her this is what is best. Once Sophie gets to New York and sees her mother they go back to her apartment. It is here that secrets are revealed to Sophie. She notices this picture on the night stand of her mother and auntie and questions the fact that she does not look like either one of them. This is when she learns that her mother was raped as a young girl and became pregnant with her. So here is this woman who had endured this brutal situation, became pregnant, and kept the child. The article “Raped And Pregnant At 12-Years-Old, This Girl Made A Remarkable Decision,” was about a women named Lianna Rebolledo who at the age of twelve had to endure this same horrific situation. Both of the women had to deal with the stigma’s of not only being raped but having to look at the children who were products of these rapes. They would have to wear the physical and emotional scars for the rest of their lives. There was a section inBreath, Eyes, Memorythat Sophie had to wake her mother from a bad dream. These were reoccurring nightmares that she suffered because of her rape. In the article Lianna has to wear the physical scars on her face and neck from her brutal attract. Sophie’s mother chose to leave her in Haiti when she moved to New York possible to get away from the pain or demons as she put it in her country. This was possibly her coping mechanism. Although she said it was to make a better way for her daughter, mother, and sister. In the article Lianna raised her daughter as best she could. And later started a nonprofit organization that she runs today that helps women who are raped and become pregnant deal with it. Both of these women had to deal with horrible situations but they still chose to have their babies. These women are very strong because I don’t think I could ever have done this.

[nabilahwrites-blog]

Your post highlights a truly complex issue regarding rape. Your artifact makes me wonder whether there is any discussion regarding abortion in Breath, Eyes, Memory, and whether it might be considered a taboo in Haitian culture. I am interested in this because it seems that victims of rape who decide to keep their child are in some way asserting their autonomy (as the author of the article you posted states)...I wonder if Sophie would have had her own journey of healing had she had similar options.

[moua94-deactivated20160506]

I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to. My mother was as brave as stars at dawn. She too was from this place. My mother was like that woman who could never bleed and then could never stop bleeding, the one who gave in to her pain, to live as a butterfly. Yes, my mother was like me.

Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. 2nd. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1998. Print.

In this passage on page 234 of Edwidge Danticat’s second edition of Breath, Eyes, Memories (Danticat) originally published in 1994, Sophie the narrator is thinking about her birth mother, Martine, who recently passed away. I think it’s a pretty good description of Sophie and Martine and the similarities that they share. In which, after years of living in Haiti and being raised by her aunt Tante Atie, who is like a mother figure to her, Martine asks for her to go live with her in New York. For years Sophie is pressured from the expectations of the women in her family like her mother and aunt. She longs to be free from them, wanting to do what she wants. Sophie and Martine are quite similar as stated in the quoted passage. While, Sophie is pressured by the expectations of her family, having to go through a virginity test and having such a traumatic experience with it, Martine herself has a traumatic past of her own. For Martine is raped by a Tonton Moncoute at a young age. Mother and daughter were both violated unwillingly. Whereas, Martine didn’t know about her assaulter, Sophie’s very own mother performed a virginity test on her constantly. With Martine’s rape and Sophie’s virginity test, both characters fled when things were too much for them. For instance, Martine left for New York, leaving her daughter behind in Haiti and Sophie ran away from Martine and got married. They both left to be free, one of the themes in the book, from what was traumatizing them. However, it is Haiti that ties these two characters together. At one point in the book, they’re in Haiti together and left it to go back to New York at the same time. Even though freedom is important in the story, I think the concept of home, that place being Haiti, is more significant. I say that because it is Haiti where everything began and ended, in connection with the quoted passage. Haiti was where Martine was raped and the place where Sophie learned about the virginity test done to girls, gaining a little more insight on why her mother did it to her. It was where Martine was laid to rest, free from her demons and Sophie was finally able to understand her mother. Haiti, with its beliefs and customs was what defined Martine and Sophie as a person.

Bibliography  

Danticat,  Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. 2nd. New York: Vintage Contemporaries,  1998. Print.

(via moua94)

I like that you draw our attention to the similarities between Martine and Sophie, even when we’d like to focus more on the differences that compelled Sophie to leave her mother. It is rather disturbing and heartbreaking that the similarity they share is rooted in sexual abuse. Martine was raped and Sophie was violated by her own mother. I think what further complicates this similarity is Martine’s reasoning for doing so - while i do not condone virginity testing, I do sympathize with Martine’s rationale. She was stripped of her autonomy and control of her body and suffered the consequences. Her experiences made her realize that she wants a different future for her daughter. I think virginity testing was her way of securing a future for Sophie, one that includes an advantageous marriage (and as we discussed in class, there is economic value tied a woman’s hymen - it must be intact if she wishes to marry well). I think Martine’s own violent past pushes her to the extreme - she would “violate” Sophie’s privacy if it meant she could have a better life than hers. Complex issue to discuss, I think! 

[moua94-deactivated20160506]

“Corregidora” by Gayl Jones

When I first read “Corregidora” by Gayl Jones, my first reaction was that it was too fast pace and I had a hard time understanding the motivation behind the actions of most of the characters in the book. However, after reading the article The Role of the Blues in Gayl Jones “Corregidora” written by Donia Elizabeth Allen, it helps give you a little more insight on the story. I also thought it was interesting how not only was singing a way for Ursa Corregidora to express herself but also a way for her to let go of the past, according to the article. In the beginning of the book, readers are told of how the women of Ursa’s family pass down their family history based on their lives as slaves and the mistreatment, such as physical abuse, prostitution, and rape that they had to endure is by having more children. When I read that passage in the book, it came off as understandable, but hateful in a way that could be traumatizing to a child if you told him/her of such an experience. When Ursa learned of her inability to bare children, to express herself, to tell people of her history, the difficulty that she faced, she sings.

Allen states that “At no point does any other voice get in the way or interrupt or “break” into the melody and cadence of Ursa’s journey into her private memories. She remembers different conversations she had with different people, but it is clearly her voice that is relaying her thoughts, rather than the voices of other people telling her their stories through her. Because Ursa gains control of her voice and maintains it, there is no need for breaks to mark transitions between speakers in the narrative. At this point it is Ursa’s narrative and Ursa’s narrative alone.” (Allen, p. 272), best describes Ursa’s reflection of herself. As mentioned before, singing the blues is a way of letting out all of the things that she can’t say that she has kept inside herself for so long. It is what allows her to go through the past and reflect on not just her but her family as well. Not only does it heal her emotionally and psychologically, I think it most importantly heals her spiritually. What I mean by that is not in a religious sense where she sought the help of God, but more as a form of spiritual cleansing for lack of a better word. Throughout the majority of the book, Corregidora, the slave owner, and the role Ursa’s great grandmother and grandmother in her life and their relationship with one another is what continuously haunts Ursa. Their past is always at the back of her mind in everything that she does. She is always afraid of something that it controls her life. It is through singing that she has control of herself. So with singing she is getting rid of all of these negative feelings that she has in order to start over as a new person who isn’t haunted by what happened to her family in the past. It is through this way that Ursa is able to heal.

Bibliography  

Allen,  Donia Elizabeth. “The Role of Blues in Gayl Jone’s  "Corregidora”.“ Callaloo 25.1 (2002): 257-273. Web.  <http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/stable/3300427>.

[sdassanayake7-blog]

The Emotional Chains of Sexual Slavery

“Antonio’s cousins were pimps, she learned, operating a family ring. Janet still had to sell sex, and a routine developed: Antonio would spend his days playing soccer and billiards, while Janet had to work at brothels in Queens and Boston.” 

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/sex-slaves-farm-304354.html

Kutner, Max. “Sex Slaves on the Farm.” Newsweek. Feb. 2015. Newsweek Web. 1 Feb. 2016.

The article, “Sex Slaves on the Farm,” by Max Kutner, focuses on the issue of modern sexual slavery in the United States and Mexico. While the piece discusses the various contexts in which sex trafficking and the consequential sexual violence occur, it primarily focuses on the rape of sex slaves in large, remote farms throughout the U.S. The article explains that in farms filled with tired, overworked, and ultimately isolated male workers, sex traffickers and pimps have found promising new clientele. One formerly enslaved sex worker known as “Janet” recalled “as many as 50 men waiting for a woman,” each willing to pay $30 to rape her (Kutner). Although the article addresses sex trafficking from both legal and economic perspectives, Janet’s story serves as the lens through which the issue is examined. This approach to delivery draws attention to the dehumanization faced by sex slaves, as they often become no more than commodities or statistics.

The horrors described in “Sex Slaves on the Farm” echoed the traumatizing past of the Corregidora women in Gayl Jones’ Corregidora. In both situations, we see women and girls dehumanized and commodified in the hands of primarily male captors. However, interestingly, the victims in the article and the novel seem forced to play other non-explicitly sexual roles as well. In Corregidora, we see that while Ursa’s grandmother, “Gram,” was clearly Corregidora’s prostitute, she was also Corregidora’s slave, daughter, and mother to his biological child. Ultimately, Corregidora was more than just Gram’s pimp or master, and her complex emotional ties to him are reflected in her obsessive recounts. Perhaps it is through retelling that Gram and her mother manage to cling to Corregidora, unable to truly remove him from their lives. “Sex Slaves on the Farm” also addresses the issue of the convoluted relationships between sex slaves and their pimps. The article describes how most sex slaves are lured into the trade by friends, boyfriends, and family members and that often times, the hope of sustaining these relationships prevents many enslaved individuals from abandoning their abusers (Kutner).

Although the novel takes place years after Corregidora’s death, his pervasive presence in the minds of the Corregidora women is similar to the way many sex slaves often feel unable to emotionally relinquish their pimps and attempt to escape captivity. Today, the United States Government prosecutes sex traffickers and pimps, but while the laws may have changed since the 1800s, the emotional consequences of the sex trade remain very much the same.

[nabilahwrites-blog]

I like your attention here to a victim’s emotional ties to their abuser. I think that the obsessiveness with storytelling has less to do with Corregidora and more to do with the powers of storytelling. Storytelling serves as evidence and truth for the women in the novel; this can provide a venue for which the women can rewrite the painful narrative. Although the title of the novel somewhat complicates this notion -if we look at the novel as Ursa’s “retelling” of the narrative that’s been passed down to her, then the title reaffirms Corregidora’s centered presence in their lives...I’m not sure how much of the story is Ursa’s and how much of it is Corregidora’s then. Ugh! 

[nabilahwrites-blog]

“It ain’t about right or wrong, truth or lies; it’s about a slave woman who brought a whole new meaning to both them words, soon as you cross over here from beyond the bridge

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day 

[nabilahwrites-blog]

What About Us?: The Black Immigrant Narrative

On January 15th, undocumented and black immigrants organized the first ever Undocumented and Black Convening in Miami. BAJI staffer Benjamin Ndugga-Kabuye was able to participate in this gather...

[nabilahwrites-blog]

“‘There is Balm…’ Spirituality & Healing Among African American Women” by Stephanie Y. Mitchem investigates the healing practices of black women in the metro Detroit area; these healing practices stray from conventional medicine. Mitchem is interested in black women’s connectedness to spirituality in their healing rituals. She cites several black women who consider their spiritual healing practices as having transformative potential. For instance, one member of the National Black Women’s Health Project (NBWHP) comments on the importance of promoting wellness among black women: “‘Such wellness is impossible without individual and group empowerment. Such personal and collective empowerment is essential to the redefining and reinterpretation of who Black women are, were, and can become’” (Mitchem). Several of the women Mitchem interviewed also expressed the importance of community in reforming individual wellbeing. Mitchem does not claim to offer any essentialized conclusions; her interviews are not meant to inform us on the experiences of "all" black women. Nonetheless, Mitchem explains that the absence of self-care was a concern shared by all of the women she interviewed.