Quests in Humanities
February Biography: Negroland, a memoir by Margo Jefferson
In honor of Black History Month, I picked a biography about the life of a black/African American woman, and I am so glad I did. This is one of those books that changes the way I see the world around me. Even before I finished it, I was already interpreting actions and reactions of people in the news differently - even music and other entertainment. I was seeing through the lens of Margo Jefferson's experience.
I'll note now: I am sorry if any word choices or opinions offend you, the reader. If you are easily offended, I would advise perhaps not reading further. However, if you choose to continue reading, please understand I write the following with thoughtfulness and respect, with no intention for degradation or slights toward any gender, skin color, or culture.
This memoir brings the reader along in the experience of a woman of color in america, and especially the tightrope-walk-balance of being a middle-class woman of color. She starts with a brief history of what her parents and their generation lived through, and then began her reflection on her years growing up. Through childhood, college life, and beyond, she talks about her experience, situations she faced, and how society evolved and changed through the years; how society's view of the "Middle Class Negro" (as she says) changed, and how their own view of themselves changed.
Her struggles were a lot more complex that anything I have experienced as a white middle-class woman. However, my experiences and struggles as a Woman did help me sympathize, appreciate, and put myself in her shoes emotionally. It made me so frustrated and angry for her. So many of the struggles are the same as they were that she is writing about from the 1970's. Isn't that a shame? Like, a crying, screaming shame.
I wish this was required reading. You're going to be an adult in our society? Here. Read some books about what life is like for people who do not look or act exactly like you, and don't have the same opportunities that you have. Read, and understand.
To clarify: this book wasn't like some sort of "cure" to my ignorance. I honestly wish I had some friends of color that I felt comfortable talking with them about this book (of the acquaintances and friends I do have, I don't want to impose. Like "mmm excuse me, would you like to be an ambassador and educate me? Pls, thx!").
One of the things I was sad about when I moved back home, was that I felt like I had stopped being around another culture. I was back in my birthplace and felt like I knew the basics of everything I needed to know about American culture. This book was encouraging: other cultures (than my white, middle class one) are here, I just have to go a bit out of my normal life habits to get into and learn about those cultures.
If I could talk to someone, I would want to ask: what is that person's experience nowadays? What do they find the most frustrating/unjust? (other than police brutality. I kinda get that one)What things have changed for the better, and what feels like it could be the solution? In the meantime, I'm watching you, Beyonce.
Some Quotes and Topics I Wish I Had a Bookclub to Discuss With:
(unless otherwise noted, quotes are from Margo Jefferson)
"The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair. And as a result of these, a sense of perpetual violation."
Although I have not personally experienced as much sexism as my mother or the women before her, I know through their stories. I know the injustices which have happened, and I have taken their anger as my own. Yes, I also have experienced sexism and injustices through men (and sadly, sometimes women). But lately I have wondered how that has fueled a pre-existing distrust, or if my awareness has made me simply more aware of the fact that what they did or said was wrong. Awareness is good, and important. Hand-me-down hurt is not.
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On page 136 of the book, she talks about seeing black actors on television, in movies, and in plays. There weren't very many. Some roles that they played were shunned and scorned by other members of the middle class, so she learned/memorized that these roles were embarrassing (and anyone nowadays would most likely agree. The writers were not very educated or perhaps did not care too much about dignity).
I was also watching an old Gilmore Girls show recently, where the mother was heavily making fun of the woman character of the show they were watching - a stay-at-home wife who was unnaturally cheerful and always baking.* I agree that it is important to understand how damaging these roles are.
People see these (highly unrealistic/stylized, yet not intentionally comedic?) portrayals, and if it's the only way they ever see that type of person, their expectations of real life can be horribly skewed. A black or Asian man as intelligent, powerful, and sexy? Or a woman of any color in a powerful, main-character role? Or in a role where she is important but her sexual appeal is NOT in anyway the focus? These are not very common things to see still on television. As a result, it is difficult for anyone to envision them in those types of roles.
*On the flip side, I don't think it's alright to make complete fun of some of these stereotypes. What's wrong with a housewife/househusband? Nothing but our own perception. In fact, I think it's wonderful when a partner is able to stay home at least part time and take care of the home and health of the family. This is a phenomenally powerful role which has been largely undervalued.
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| Chelsea Does : Racism, a documentary/somewhat of a comedy on Netflix |
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She talks about the incredible amount of pressure the middle-class people of color went through. It was so stressful that she says, "in Negroland boys learned early how to die." It was even more difficult for the girls, with so many stipulations on how ladylike, chaste, intelligent and strong they must be.
During the feminist movement of the '70's, white women had the privilege of expressing their depression and melancholy. White women were able to be "freely yielding to depression, of flaunting neurosis as a mark of social and psychic complexity." which were feelings that were not allowed for a woman of color to express "because our people had endured horrors and prevailed, even triumphed, their descendants should be too strong and to proud for such behavior."
"We were to be ladies, responsible Negro women, and indomitable Black Women."
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At one point in the book be shows her collection of quotes she related to:
"I had wanted to compromise with Fate to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privations and small pains. Fate would not be so pacified . . .
'But if I feel, may I never express?'
'Never!' declared Reason.
I groaned under her bitter sternness. . . . If I have obeyed her it has chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love."
Charlotte Bronte, Villette
(My note: it's infuriating how unwelcome expressions of anger and hurt are, when we have experienced something unjust. Anyone who hasn't gone through that experience - anyone at the top of the social food chain ::ahem::white men::ahem:: - gets uncomfortable and tells us to be quiet. If we express our hurt too much, they start to shun us, calling us crazy, angry, irrational people)
"You are you and you are going to be you forever. It was like coasting downhill, this thought, only much much worse, and it quickly smashed into a tree. Why was I a human being?"
Elizabeth Bishop, The Country Mouse
"I have stories to tell?
I have cuts and bruises that do not map a course.
Wendy Walters, A Letter from the Hunted in Retrospect
"And none of them are justified unless you find a way to make the story worth telling." - Margo Jefferson
(My note: I have gone through periods where I feel like there is no one who will accept my feelings as justified, unless I can find a way to put it into a more palatable, more interesting and pleasant story. I guess that is always the case, for any situation, but it does make a person feel a little more isolated and hopeless)
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On Florynce Kennedy, a lawyer, protester, organizer; an activist for civil rights, anti-war, black power, feminism, and gay rights:
"She used to say something like this:
When black women tell me feminism is a white woman's thing, I tell them: you've spent all these years, all these centuries, imitating every bad idea white women came up with - about their hair, their makeup, their clothes, their duties to their men. And now, they finally come up with one good idea- feminism- and you decide you don't want anything to do with it!"
Margo Jefferson writes that "I won't trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class." that these are all "basic elements of on's living." In the end, it's a question of "How does each matter?" (Not "which matters most?"). As she says,
"Gender, race, class; class, race, gender - your three in one and one in three."
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My conclusion: this was very important to read, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement currently, and the recent hoopla about Beyonce and her Black Panthers reference at the Super Bowl. I hope teachers are using material like this in school. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing what you can to try to understand people who are not living in your own personal sphere of existence.
Knowledge is power, and the understanding that comes with knowledge leads to peace.
KJets
https://youtu.be/nVtT4jZM9GA
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