Words of Fire (93 page)

By and large, critics have either tried to dismiss or ignore the sexual politics of rap music, or, in a few cases, attempted to legitimize the macho and misogynist stance of black male rappers as an affirmation of their manhood: on occasion, this has even been elevated to the level of a distinct mode of resistance. For example, without mentioning black women, critic Jon Michael Spencer describes the sexism of male rappers as an “insurrection of subjugated sexualities,” citing Foucault, Fanon, and white fears of black male sexuality to underscore his point. He writes: “Male rappers, flaunting exaggerated perceptions of their sexual capacities, tease white fears of alleged black illicit sexualities ... rap's insurgence of subjugated sexualities is radical because there is no secret, no confession, no selfinterrogation.”
⁴
What this critic fails to recognize is that the aggressive
assertion of male sexuality does not get expressed in a social vacuum, but that the aggression has a target, and that target is black women. And since when has black male hypersexuality been insurrectionary relative to racist stereotypes of black sexuality? And since when has sexual violence against and manipulation of black women been of any concern to the dominant society? Rappers who promote misogynist images of women are aiming those attacks point blank at black women.
^h
This is not a militant assertion of black manhood; it is a militant debasement of black womanhood and, by extension, black personhood. Moreover, the black community has a right to, and should, expect something from its native sons that it does not expect —and certainly has never gotten—from white entertainers: a recognition of the humanity of all black people, men and women.

The popularity of rap music, commercialized Afrocentrism, and what David Maurrasse has termed Malcolmania are all testimony to the legitimate rage and disaffection from American society that millions of black youth feel. These trends also evidence the inability of traditional, or even ostensibly radical or revolutionary, black leaders to offer a serious political program that channels that rage into constructive political strategies. Political weaknesses notwithstanding, the appeal of Malcolm X and the popularity of militant rappers do represent a limited form of resistance to racial oppression. Wearing the symbolic “X” or blasting the lyrics to “Fight the Power,” while not the most effective political strategy and not without contradictions, do represent defiant statements of opposition against a system that has deemed them powerless, subhuman, and expendable. The obvious problem, of course, is that such a male-centered definition of oppression and liberation leaves out more than half of the African American population. The representation of those symbols in exclusively male form, the class bias and essentialism of Afrocentricity and, in the case of rap, the accompanying denigration of black women, dull the radical edge that these modes of cultural expression might otherwise represent. African American youth, male and female, are clearly searching for viable outlets for their pent-up, and potentially political, energy, anger, and creativity. This is, if nothing else, a hopeful sign and cause for optimism. Possibly the most profound political impact of both the celebration of Malcolm and the popularity of political rap has been to give legitimacy and international visibility to the rage and the humanity of a whole generation of disenfranchised black urban youth. Perhaps these searching young minds will find answers and political solutions, not on MTV or BET [Black Entertainment Television], or in the speeches of immortal prophets, but within themselves. It is
a complex journey from consciousness to the concrete politics of empowerment, and one that is, by definition, full of contradictions and detours. It is perhaps most important, individually and collectively, simply to stay on the right road, and to resist the temptation to gloss over and silence our contradictions. The words of the radical Trinidadian intellectual, C. L. R. James, are inspiring in this regard. He writes:

ENDNOTES

1
Patricia Hill Collins, “Learning to Think for Ourselves,” in
Malcolm X: In Our Image
, ed. J. Wood (New York, 1991), 74.

2
Paul Lee, “Malcolm X's Evolved Views on the Role of Women in Society” (manuscript, 1991).

3
E. Frances White, “Africa on My Mind: Gender Counter Discourse and African American Nationalism,”
Journal of Women's History
(Spring 1990): 73.

4
Jon Michael Spencer, “Rhapsody in Black: Utopian Aspirations,”
Theology Today
48, no. 4 (1992).

5
C. L. R. James, in
Race Today
6, no. 5 (1974): 144.

A
lice Walker, born in Eatonton, Georgia, helps to reclaim the creative legacy of black women in her landmark essay, “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens,” by celebrating the anonymous artists among us, like her mother, who gardened and quilted and made life more beautiful. A civil rights activist and teacher, Alice Walker taught the first course on black women writers, at Wellesley College in the 1970s. She has published five novels, two collections of short stories, five collections of poetry and two collections of essays. She also edited the first collection of writings on Zora Neale Hurston. Her most recent publication is
Warrior Marks
(with Pratibha Parmar), a narrative of her involvement with the making of a film on female genital mutilation.

Walker's counterdiscourse on “womanism” provided an alternative terminology for black feminists during a time when many women of color were raising angry voices about their marginalization or erasure within mainstream white feminist discourse. Her essay “In the Closet of the Soul”
(Living by the Word,
1988) provides a counterargument to those angry voices within the black community, in particular, who raged against her Pulitzer Prize—winning novel,
The Color Purple
(1983), because of its alleged negative treatment of black men. It was originally a letter she wrote in 1986 in response to a question about her reaction to criticism of the character Mister. Walker is completing a collection of essays in response to
The Color Purple.

[
A
t a reading of my work at the University of California at Davis in 1986 I met an African American couple, both of whom had African names. The wife asked for a copy of the poem to Winnie Mandela I had read, which I gave her. She then asked about my reaction to criticism of the character Mister in
The Color Purple.
She was very intense, beautiful, and genuine, and I wanted to give her an answer worthy of her inquiry. I wrote this essay, which I sent to her.]

Dear Mpinga,

You asked if I was shocked at the hostile reaction of some people, especially some black men, to the character of Mister in the book and more particularly in the movie
The Color Purple.
I believe I replied only half-jokingly that no, I was beyond shock. I was saddened by the response, disappointed certainly, but I have felt better as I've tried to put myself in the place of the men (and some women) and tried to understand the source of what appears to be in many a genuine confusion, yes (as you say), but also a genuine pain.

An early disappointment to me in some black men's response to my work—to
The Third Life of Grange Copeland
and
Meridian,
for instance—is their apparent inability to empathize with black women's suffering under sexism, their refusal even to acknowledge our struggles; indeed, there are many black men who appear unaware that sexism exists (or do not even know what it is), or that women are oppressed in virtually all cultures, and if they do recognize there is abuse, their tendency is to minimize it or to deflect attention from it to themselves. This is what happened, to a large extent, with the movie. A book and movie that urged us to look at the oppression of women and children by men (and, to a lesser degree, by women) became the opportunity by which many black men drew attention
to themselves—not in an effort to rid themselves of the desire or tendency to oppress women and children, but, instead, to claim that inasmuch as a “negative” picture of them was presented to the world, they were, in fact, the ones being oppressed. The people responsible for the picture became, ironically, “outside agitators.” We should just go back to the sickness we came from.

It has been black men (as well as black women and Native Americans) who have provided in this culture the most inspiring directions for everyone's freedom. As a daughter of these men I did not hear a double standard when they urged each person to struggle to be free, even if they intended to impart one. When Malcolm said, Freedom, by any means necessary, I thought I knew what he meant. When Martin said, Agitate nonviolently against unjust oppression, I assumed he also meant in the home, if that's where the oppression was. When Frederick Douglass talked about not expecting crops without first plowing up the ground, I felt he'd noticed the weeds in most of our backyards. It is nearly
crushing
to realize there was an assumption on
anyone's
part that black women would not fight injustice except when the foe was white.

I was saddened that, in their need to protect their egos from already well-known-to-be-hostile-and-indifferent white racists (who have made plain for centuries that how they treat us has little to do with the “positive” or “negative” image we present), many black men missed an opportunity to study the character of Mister, a character that I deeply love—not, obviously, for his meanness, oppression of women, and general early boorishness, but because he went deeply enough into himself to find the courage to change. To grow.

It is a mistake to assume that Celie's “meekness” makes her a saint and Mister's brutality makes him a devil. The point is, neither of these people is healthy. They are, in fact, dreadfully ill, and they manifest their dis-ease according to their culturally derived sex roles and the bad experiences early impressed on their personalities. They proceed to grow, to change, to become whole, i.e., well, by becoming more like each other, but stopping short of taking on each other's illness. Celie becomes more self-interested and aggressive; Albert becomes more thoughtful and considerate of others.

At the root of the denial of easily observable and heavily documented sexist brutality in the black community—the assertion that black men don't act like Mister, and if they do, they're justified by the pressure they're under as black men in a white society—is our deep, painful refusal to accept the fact that we are not only the descendants of slaves, but we are also the descendants of slave
owners.
And that just as we have had to struggle to rid ourselves of slavish behavior, we must as ruthlessly eradicate any desire to be mistress or “master.” I have not, by any means, read or even seen all the negative reviews of Mister's character and its implications
for blacks in America. However, in the ones I have read, I've been struck by the absence of any analysis of who, in fact, Mister is. Nobody, no critic, that is, has asked this character, “Boy, who your peoples?”

In the novel and in the movie (even more so in the movie, because you can
see
what color people are), it is clear that Mister's father is part white; this is how Mister comes by his run-down plantation house. It belonged to his grandfather, a white man and a slave owner. Mister learns how to treat women and children from his father, Old Mister. Who did old Mister learn from? Well, from Old Master, his slave-owning father, who treated Old Mister's mother and old Mister (growing up) as slaves,
which they were.
ⁱ
Old Mister is so riddled with self-hatred, particularly of his black “part,” the “slave” part (totally understandable, given his easily imagined suffering during a childhood among blacks and whites who despised each other), that he spends his life repudiating, denigrating, and attempting to dominate anyone blacker than himself, as is, unfortunately, his son. The contempt that Old Mister's father/owner exhibited for his black slave “woman” (Old Mister's mother) is reflected in Old Mister's description of Shug Avery, who, against all odds, Albert loves: “She black as tar, she nappy headed. She got legs like baseball bats.”
This is a slave owner's description of
a
black woman.
But Albert's ability to genuinely love Shug, and find her irresistibly beautiful—black as she is—is a major sign of mother love, the possibility of health; and, since she in her blackness reflects him, an indication that he is at least capable of loving himself. No small feat.