Somebody Stole Alla Ma Stuff

I was robbed. For the vast majority of my life I have been expected to live, and live well, without the proper tools to do so. I have gone through countless years of school and it is not until this very moment in my third year of undergraduate study that I began to understand how much of my education is founded upon lies, violence, and a historical sleight of hand. Through grade school to now I have been robbed and suffered an ongoing violence of misinformation. An overwhelming number of the books I am given showcase one narrative about my existence: servitude. I have been told over and over that I have no right to pleasure, peace, or power. My place in the world is one of abuse, trauma, and accessory. I cannot stand alone. I cannot be violent. I cannot want. Overall, my issue is quite simple honestly: my imagination has been stolen.

The issue, however, is not merely with the theft of my own imagination. Though I am personally furious about my own robbery and brainwashing, I try to avoid speaking from a place of individualism. There is a larger problem implicated here for all of us. I am concerned with our collective imagination; the Black Imagination. Charlene Carruthers introduces the idea in her text Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements when she shows us how not studying Black queer feminists robs us of valuable history. She says that only studying Martin Luther King, Jr. limits the Black Imagination of children. But Carruthers’ point is not just applicable to studying social movements. Our continued erasing of figures from our collective memory is dangerous. It confines our understanding of Black life--past, present, and future--to what we are constantly taught. And these teachings, while valuable in their own right, are limiting when the majority of them only offer us one example of Black life: Black men.

A few of the culprits in the theft of our collective Black Imagination are some of Black literature’s greatest participants. I am thinking particularly of the Black Literati of the 1930s, which includes Richard Wright, Alain Locke, and Ralph Ellison. Each of these men held great influence over Black literature. This influence, however, managed to marginalize a large community of writers. As a general practice, it is startling to believe that any one person or group can dictate what is and is not acceptable for an entire genre. Yet, time and time again it happens. Wright, Locke, and Ellison took it upon themselves to write the rules of Black literature. It is even more startling to imagine the amount of praise these “gatekeepers” received for their criticisms. Now, my issue is not with the process of critique itself. In fact, I believe critique to be an act of love. The labor required to engage with someone’s work and give feedback is beautiful. This critique, however, should not be given under the auspices of some all-knowing expertise. This is especially true when the critique comes from someone with very little knowledge of the experience, the story, and the life of the art they are critiquing so vigorously. It is for this limited range and self proclaimed expertise that I hold Richard Wright, and others, accountable.

Literary criticism, especially in Black literature, has a duty to say something and this is where Richard Wright fumbles. He dissects Zora Neale Hurston throughout his piece Between Laughter and Tears,  but his dissection is little more than the petty musings of a disgruntled Black man consumed with his own manhood. Until Black male writers, like Wright, are willing to depart from their own sorted battle with masculinity and explore themselves as more than men, their criticisms surrounding Black women and their work will always fall short of saying something (or anything) worthwhile.

By silencing Zora Neale Hurston (and countless other Black women) in the 1930s, Wright, and others, robbed us all of a vital piece of our Black Imagination. We, in 2019, are just beginning to dive into the full glory of Zora Neale Hurston’s fiction and ethnographic work. She serves as a shining example of the erasure so frequently felt by Black women at the hands of Black men pushing them to the margins. This is criminal. Due to the canonization of so many Black cis men and the silencing of Black women there remains an imbalance in our understanding of who’s voice is valuable. Yet, the clear assumption is that my voice as a poor Black woman is not. My voice  is inherently devalued today because of the foundation set by Black men I have never met. I am still labeled as angry, too much, and loud for daring to be myself. The criticisms Wright and others had of Hurston’s work were not merely two-page critiques of one woman who they deemed unworthy, but became canonized trends of Black women being silenced in Black literature and beyond.

I will no longer be stolen from. Instead, I am committing to undoing the theft in the archives by giving credit to the Black women, and other marginalized folk, who were held captive in the margins by the Black male literati. The principle aim of my reclamation project of a Black femme centered library is simple: I am determined to exist. An essential portion of this reclamation project is unearthing the work of Black femmes who have always made it their business to give life to Black womanhood throughout their work. Black women writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and her literary descendants--bell hooks, Alice Walker, Barbara Smith, Paula Giddings, Ntozake Shange--have consistently explored the full glory of Black womanhood by exploring more than our status as subjugated--they bring us to life. We are so much more than accessories to the lives of Black men.

The larger project of rehabilitating the Black Imagination is one that requires us all to do work of investing in Black Women’s Studies. We must unlearn everything we believe to be the basis for Black progress and Black liberation that fails to include Black femmes. We must recognize the limits of our current Black literary canon. Interrogating this current canon, along with its biases, frivolities, and contradictions, is the start to undoing the violent pilferage committed by the Black male literati of the 1930s; I am reclaiming alla ma stuff.