Rankine’s Citizen provided challenges for me, as someone who is not as familiar with poetry, but what was particularly interesting to me was Rankine’s use of images on the page. These visual breaks on the page seemed to reflect the experience of the speaker, in which these situations are interruptions of her lived experience in sudden and unexpected ways. What I mean by this is I could not find a pattern to when Rankine placed images on the page, nor could I always figure out why she placed a particular image between particular poems. However, this I interpreted to mean that the visual breaking up of text is a reflection of the breaking of the speaker’s experience from one of being to one of being written upon. In the same way that the speaker experienced these encounters with her friends and colleagues, who either gave “well-meaning advice” or tried including them in their racism, the reader of this book encounters these disruptions of the reading experience with visual representations. There was also the use of stills in the poems paired with the situation videos, which was another interesting use of translating movement and moving media onto the unmoving pages of a book.

This also seemed quite interesting from the perspective of someone who is active on social media, as it seemed reminiscent of black use of social media, in particular twitter. Black twitter’s use of pictures and gifs to accompany the text they have written to express a full range of emotion seems reflected here in Rankine’s book. It is also interesting to see how a very versatile, mobile medium is expressed on the static page of a book. In other words, twitter provides active discourse and actual movement (with the use of gifs, for example), which Rankine, who is using a printed book, is limited by what a page can display. The formatting of the poems on the page also seemed to me to be reminiscent of the twitter display, as viewing the tweets on a phone screen reflects the set up of Rankine’s poems. It is a rectangle of text on the upper half of the page (or screen) which may or may not be accompanied by images and which is often without a title (and often even without the space for a title). The book, then, uses a very visual medium that is recognized as a black space for communication and translates it to print.

What was particularly interesting for me about Brathwaite was idea behind the project of capturing sound on the page. Now, as someone who has mostly grown up with access to computers it is not as strange to me to think of translating non-standard English from sound to writing. It’s still complicated, and incredibly difficult, but it was not something that occurred to me as a huge problem. However, upon reading the Brathwaite and Kirschenbaum, and seeing Brathwaite’s poems, the plurality of this issue became clear to me. It’s quite fascinating how Brathwaite captures rhythm and dialect on the page, but when it was read in class it did not read as smoothly as one might have expected. This issue of oral to written to oral again piqued my interest.

The problem, then, spans several levels. One is that of authenticity, and here I think in particular of Chesnutt and his use of the black voice to be “authentic” (though he is, of course, only one of many). Capturing dialect on the page can be distorted and abused in many ways, particularly as English is such a tool of empire and any English that deviates from the “standard” or “proper” form is seen as inferior. To capture dialect on the page, then, could be seen as offensive given that the author felt the need to portray the character’s “broken English” on the page. As often happens, the dialect on the page does not accurately reflect how a person of that background might speak and ends up being a mangled, caricature-esque representation of what that dialect was actually like. It also make the text incredibly difficult to understand, as the author often mangles English so much to create a brokenness on the page that it no longer becomes legible, which leads to the impression that non-standard dialects of English, even in the spoken form, are unintelligible to the speaker and writer of standard English.

Another level is that of truth. If it is someone who actually speaks a certain dialect of English, then it makes for a more nuanced representation of what that form of English is like, as Brathwaite does for Caribbean English. As a speaker of that form of English, he understands the conventions of it and does not mangle, in the same way a white or non-Caribbean author word, the dialect itself. For prescriptivists, he could be mangling the English language, but he is staying true to the dialect.

But then there is the question of whether or not dialect should even be presented on the page. On one hand, to not show dialect on the page and merely say the character had a dialect would allow the reader to forget that the character speaks a different form of English. On the other hand, to show the “broken” qualities of non-standard English would be to improperly represent this form of English. It then begs the question of whether it is worse to have representation, if it is of poor quality, or to not have any representation at all. A solution to this, though it has its drawbacks, is to allow authors from underrepresented communities write the stories, rather than those who are white, but it unfairly puts all the work on the shoulders of minority authors. There is no easy solution to this, but it is a problem I find interesting nonetheless.

The answer (for me) is yes, Bigger should’ve been innocent. The reason why the novel didn’t resonate as much with me was because of the fact that Bigger was actually guilty. I understand that the novel is supposed to show how it is society’s fault that Bigger ended up in the position of killing two women, however, I think the injustice of the system shows more efficiently if Bigger is innocent. That’s not to say that Bigger’s worth is lessened because he committed those crimes, but it feels like protesting the system when you’re actually guilty just seems less efficient. It would also be more effective because it’s the reality. Black men are far more likely to be incarcerated regardless of their innocence, and perhaps, arguably, in spite of it. A black man is afforded less doubt when it comes to the crimes he has allegedly committed. It is true that Wright was trying to draw attention to how the system is flawed and how exactly it is rigged against black men, but it seemed to fall flat given that Bigger actually committed the crimes he was accused of. Not only was Bigger guilty, but the crimes were incredibly violent. It wasn’t just that he’d murdered two women, but also that he’d hacked one to pieces to hide her body and he raped the other. These were extremely violent, extremely graphic crimes, and it just felt like trying to protest the system with a character as flawed as Bigger just didn’t work. Bigger was also too flawed; to protest the system it wasn’t necessary to have a perfect character, a saintly martyr, but I felt that Bigger was too far on the other side of the spectrum.

Perhaps I am also clouded by the perspective of someone living in 2018. There is far more focus on the Prison Industrial Complex, as well as the brutal killings of black men at the hands of the police. Black men are assumed guilty even when proven innocent. Therefore the discourse surrounding Bigger in the novel seems untrue. It is not entirely that Jan and Max are trying to prove that Bigger is innocent, but they are absolving him of the responsibility of having committed the crime and placing the blame on the system. Now, I’m not arguing that the system wasn’t against Bigger, because it was and is, but Bigger, especially in the rape and murder of Bessie, was the sole agent in brutalizing this woman. Bessie’s assumption that the system, that people will assume Bigger raped Mary before killing her is actually proven true because Bigger raped and killed Bessie. That is to say, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, but Bigger did not have to rape and kill Bessie. Mary’s death was an accident, but the brutalization of Bessie was not. It is this brutal treatment of women, this incredible violence which makes me believe that Bigger is not as effective as Wright wants him to be as proof that the system is prejudiced against black men.

Abbandonato, Linda. “‘A View From ‘Elsewhere’’: Subversive Sexuality and the Rewriting of the Heroine’s Story in The Color Purple” PMLA, Vol. 106, No. 5. Modern Language Association (Oct. 1991), pp. 1109-1115.

▪︎ Abbandonato explores Celie’s voice, specifically as it is expressed in writing, as challenging heterosexual, patriarchal subjectivity. The author does so by analyzing The Color Purple as well as the novel Clarissa, with the intention of highlighting the drastic difference in identity/background for women with fairly similar life experiences.

Babb, Valerie. “The Color Purple: Writing to Undo What Writing Has Done” Phylon (1960-), Vol. 47, No. 2. Clark Atlanta University (2nd Qtr., 1986), pp. 107-116.

▪︎ The author is exploring the relationship and power dynamic in black v. white, man v. woman, and oral v. literary with the main characters in The Color Purple. Babb analyzes the characters of Celie and Nettie as black women who “reorganize the hierarchy” and therefore free themselves from the dominant (white heterosexual male) power structures. The author pays special attention to letter writing as the medium of the narrative.

Fox, Catherine O., Ore, Tracy E. “(Un)Covering Normalized Gender and Race Subjectivities in LGBT ‘Safe Spaces’” Feminist Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3, SEX AND SURVEILLANCE. Feminist Studies, Inc. (Fall 2010), pp. 629-649.

▪︎ Fox and Ore trace the origin of safe spaces and the concept of safety. In this exploration, they analyze and deconstruct the inherent privilege in safe spaces and how that relates to the creation of safe spaces in marginalized communities. The authors also firmly root the concept of safety in the world of white, heterosexual meaning, and how this safety is achieved “at the expense of many women.”

Lewis, Christopher S. “Cultivating Black Lesbian Shamelessness: Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” Rocky Mountain Review, Vol. 66, No. 2. Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (Fall 2012), pp. 158-175.

▪︎ Lewis looks at the relationship between black lesbian writers and the Black Arts Movement of the ‘80s, specifically at the notions of femininity and homosexuality and inherently detrimental to the fight against oppression. The author uses The Color Purple as a case study of the celebration of same-sex black relationships.

Selzer, Linda. “Race and Domesticity in The Color Purple” African American Review, Vol. 29, No. 1. Indiana State University (Spring 1995), pp. 67-82.

▪︎ Selzer analyzes and criticizes the negative interpretations of domesticity in Alice Walker’s novel. The author argues against the degradation of the role of domesticity and personal/domestic narratives of black women characters through the life of Celie.

As a basis for my project, I would like to use the evolution of the character of Celie in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The change in Celie’s voice is quite dramatic, and it reflects the growing formation of identity throughout the novel. Celie begins the novel as an inscriptive surface; her ideas about herself stem only from what others think of her. Her writing is also reflective of a sense of being “unformed” in that Celie makes many mistakes, and writes exactly as she speaks. This lack of “proper” education, that is education in a school setting, does not mean Celie isn’t influenced by the white supremacist and patriarchal ideals that would have been instilled in her in an educational setting. However, throughout the novel, Celie begins an exploration of self, of identity, that she had not previously had the luxury to do. In conjunction with this exploration of identity, Celie’s writing changes. The language she uses, even who she addresses (as this book is written as a series of letters between Celie and her sister Nettie), changes alongside her exploration of identity. With this idea of writing as a space for identity formation, I have two ideas that I would like to explore.

The first would be a look back, an exploration of texts written by enslaved black women and texts written by black women in the immediacy of post-Civil War America. It would provide what might be a more straightforward correlation between learning to write and identity formation. What would most interest me is to see not just what they use to write, but what they write about, even the more banal subjects. It would be interesting to see if there is a sense of thematic progression from writing about ideas imposed on them to writing about their own ideas.

The second idea is a look at the present, particularly at identity formation and online spaces. This would be a more interactive approach, as I might include a forum or google form or some other questionnaire for people to fill out. Specifically, I would want to explore the relationship between black LGBT women and writing spaces. In the era of the internet, it would be interesting to see how black LGBT women, who bear the brunt of marginalization on multiple fronts, consider different media for communication. Given that black women, especially black LGBT women, are often ignored or silenced in favor of voices that are closer to the white cishet “norm,” I would like to explore their relationship to the internet as a place to be heard. This new kind of inscription could be both positive (black LGBT women have a space to finally express and explore their identities) and negative (black LGBT women are still shunned or silenced by non-black, cishet voices, or the options for identity expression are so many they feel overwhelmed).

Possible Sources

Finding a Place in Cyberspace: Black Women, Technology, and Identity – Michelle M. Wright

The Color Purple: Writing to Undo What Writing Has Done – Valerie Babb

Evaluating the Severity of Hate-motivated Violence: Intersectional Differences Among LGBT Hate Crime Victims – Doug Meyer

Intersectionality, Heteronormativity, and Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LBGT) Families – Juan Battle and Colin Ashley

The Impact of Community Involvement, Religion, and Spirituality on Happiness and Health among a National Sample of Black Lesbians – Juan Battle and Alfred DeFreece

(Un)Covering Normalized Gender and Race Subjectivities in LGBT “Safe Spaces” – Catherine O. Fox and Tracy E. Ore

My intent with this project was to gauge if there was some fluctuation in religious ideas as it related to the social circumstances. The three terms I plugged in were faith, salvation, and repentance. With the entire corpus, it was difficult to get a sense of a pattern. Although faith and pattern sometimes coincided, repentance followed its own rhythm. The fluctuations in salvation and faith also seems more significant and drastic than for repentance. However, since the corpus is so large, it is difficult to get a sense of the context and how it changes. Faith, the most numerous, has a total of 3,754 occurrences. Salvation has a total of 757, also making it difficult to get a sense of the context. With repentance, even though it has 142 occurrences, it is still hard to get a sense of the context.

When I plugged these same terms into the Douglass corpus, the amount of data was far more manageable. Faith, the most numerous, appeared a total of 105, with a steady but minimal growth from the first version of the autobiography to the third. The changing context of faith is interesting, as it fluctuates between the secular use of faith and the religious. In the religious context, it most often pops up with a negation before it, as in “no faith” or “lack of faith.” Salvation, in the few times it appears, is used in both a religious and secular context, speaking both of the salvation of the union and the salvation by Jesus Christ. It also steadily decreases over time. Repentance, curiously, does not appear at all in the first version of the autobiography. As is visible in the graph, it is used most in the second version, then decreases again. The context of repentance was interesting, as it was mostly negative. Douglass often spoke of the lack of repentance, or the absence of the sincerity and humility of proper repentance.

In the women’s corpus, faith followed the pattern of being the most numerous of the terms with a total of 285 occurrences. What is most interesting about faith is the two very significant spikes in usage, while the rest of it fluctuates quite regularly. Some of the most common words that preceded or followed faith related to transformation, triumph, richness of faith, and strength. Salvation mirrors almost exactly the trajectory of faith, though it occurs only 108 times. The major spikes in usage perfectly overlap, which was very interesting. The context of salvation was quite similar as well, in writing about full and great salvation. The last term, repentance, surprisingly only occurred a total of 16 times. Repentance appeared in the context of “true” repentance, and of a calling for/to repentance.

The difficulty in drawing conclusions from such a project was the lack of specifics. The interface of the graph made it difficult to get an exact date and exact document for each (more so for the entire corpus). However, this would be an interesting way to start a project, as the trends of these words seem to be very closely aligned. A more thorough investigation into the historical and social contexts of the times, of the exact years in which these spikes in occurrence happened would pave the way for a very interesting project.

For anyone who is a fan of the “nerdy” genres out there (sci-fi/fantasy), I’ve linked a blog I like to read by “Afro-Caribbean-American” writer Phenderson Djèlí Clark, who offers his critique of characters of color, particularly black characters, in movies, shows, and books in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. He tends to be fairly intersectional and writes quite often about women characters of color as well!

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