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Archive for the ‘Race Relations’ Category

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photo: Jena Six (1 of 6)
by whileseated

Jena, LA – It began when a black high school freshman, Justin Purvis, asked permission to sit in the cool shade of his school’s courtyard tree, one that?only white kids usually sat under.?The school told him to do what he liked. The following day, three nooses hung from the tree in school colors. The school superintendent dismissed the nooses as a prank and gave the three white students who hung them?three days suspension. Parents were never told.

(The?majority of this post comes from my?notes on two Democracy Now! segments:?The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree?and “A Modern-Day Lynching” – Parents of Jena Six Speak of Injustice, Racism in Sons’ Prosecution.)

Robert Bailey, 17 year old safety receiver for the football team and one of the “Jena Six” facing life in prison, explained his reaction to the nooses:

It was in early morning I seen them hanging. I’m thinking the KKK hanging nooses, they want to hang somebody…. We do little pranks. Toilet paper, that’s a prank. Nooses hanging? Nooses ain’t no prank.”

Caseptla Bailey, Robert’s mother, found out a week later. To her, the nooses meant? hatred.

It meant that ‘we’re going to kill you. You’re going to die.’ You know, it sent a message. ‘This is not the place for you to sit. This is not your damn tree. Do not sit here. You are to remain in your place, know your place and stay in your place.’

According to her, the sheriff, the police department, and the superintendent said one incident had nothing to do with the other. Not everyone agreed. Parents congregated and contacted political leaders. The entire black student body staged an impromptu and civil demonstration, standing?under the tree a few days later. For this, the school called the police and the district attorney. According to Michelle Rogers, one of the few black teachers at the school, DA Reed Walters called an assembly, “held a pen in his hand and told those kids ‘See this pen in my hands? I could end your life with the stroke of a pen.’”

Anger escalated. In October,?Robert Bailey?was beaten for?attending a party after asking permision to enter. Later that month, a young white?man pulled a sawed-off shotgun on a group of black students at a gas station claiming self defense. The black students wrestled the gun away and called the police only to be charged with assault and robbery of the gun. The white man was?charged with nothing. In November, someone tried to burn down the school, an unsolved crime. On December 4th , a white student was allegedly attacked in a school fight. The victim was taken to the hospital, released with a concussion, and was well enough to attend a school function that evening.

The school fight required discipline. Six black students were charged with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder on charges that leave them facing 20-100 years in jail with bonds set at $70-138 thousand dollars. When the local paper published the story as fact, DA Reed Walters published the following statement, “When you are convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law.” Robert Bailey has no criminal record, the only weapon claimed to be used in the fight were a pair of sneakers, yet he?sat in jail for two months until his mother was able to raise bail.

Mychal Bell?, another promising student and a football player with scholarship opportunities, also faced charges. Mychal’s lawyer put?his father, Marcus Jones, on the witness list. The judge instated?a gag order,?preventing?Jones from speaking to the press?or asking for help.?Jones was never asked to testify. Further, Mychal’s lawyer never contested?an all white jury. He didn’t call?any witnesses. Nor did he cross examine the state’s witnesses. He?told Mychal?to plea bargain. Mychal refused, believing he would appear guilty in such an emotionally charged town. Today, Mychal?was convicted of 2nd degree aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit same for his role in?the unarmed school fight. Mychal’s father says this will teach Mychal “what it means to be black now.”

When?Robert Bailey?sustained a head injury from a beer bottle at?a party before the December 4th school fight, his white assailant received a “simple battery” charge. In Louisiana, simple battery is a misdemeanor. Comparatively, Bell faces 22 years in prison.

The family is unable to hire another lawyer at this time.?Democracy Now! posts that financial support can be sent to:

The Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO BOX 2798
Jena, LA 71342.

They also need legal volunteers and activists to demonstrate locally. According to Caseptla Bailey, those members of Jena?s white community who are in support of justice for the Jena Six are afraid to come forward.

While this story is not prominent in mainstream media, AfroSpear: A Think Tank For People of African Descent has compiled a vast collection of facts and resources.?They also provide an update and more documents here. These families need our help. Please educate yourself, spread the word, and?add your name to the following petition:

To: Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice

We respectfully request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice review events surrounding the prosecution of six Black students in Jena, Louisiana, to determine whether the civil rights of Jena residents have been violated.

In a May 20, 2007 Chicago Tribune article titled “Racial Demons Rear Heads,” Howard Witt reported that the six students faced prosecution for charges including second degree attempted murder — and possible prison sentences of up to 100 years — for allegedly participating in an unarmed school brawl that resulted in no serious injuries. The alleged brawl followed months of racial tension after hangman’s nooses were hung from a tree at the students’ school.

From the same Chicago Tribune article:

?There?s been obvious racial discrimination in this case,? said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a ?racial powder keg? primed to ignite. ?It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment.?

The prosecution of these young men represents a gross miscarriage of justice, punishing Black students for opposing segregation of their schools while ignoring the threatening and provocative acts of those engaging in segregation.

We respectfully request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice launch a full investigation into events in Jena, Louisiana, beginning with the noose incident of August 31, 2006, and culminating in the alleged fight of December 4, 2006 to determine whether the civil rights of Jena residents have been violated.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

NPR – Searching for Justice in Jena 6 Case
?News & Notes, July 5, 2007 ? Six black teens have been charged with the beating of a white high school student in the rural town of Jena, La. Jordan Flaherty, a journalist living in New Orleans, and Caseptla Bailey, the mother of one of the defendants, give an update on the case.

The Jena Six
? Michael David Murphy, 2007
This video was made with audio, video, photographs, and scans of court documents on June 25, 2007, in Jena, Louisiana.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za4B4KhIVTE]

So, we return this week to J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace, and?the lower-than-snake-shit-in-the-track-of-a-wagon-wheel main character, Dr. Lurie…

DAVID AS COLONIZER
David is the epitome of a colonizing political force, defining women?in terms of?”other.”?He sees them as uncivilized?and ignorant sexual beings?until,?once conquered by his desire, they benefit from the experience of knowing him. ?Melanie is complicit in this sordid experience only to the extent that?African citizens were robbed of their homeland during apartheid, or Native Americans?lost their?Great Turtle Island. They were all manipulated and conquered. David is but one player of many in a long social history of oppressing women. His type is the catalyst for the trials they face.

David’s point of view?resembles?remnants of racial opinion in America, at the very least. He is speaking with Lucy after she has been raped, telling her:

Either you stay on in a house of ugly memories and go on brooding on what happened to you, or you put the whole episode behind you and you start a new chapter elsewhere. Those, as I see it, are the alternatives. (Coetzee 155)

This smacks of the sentiment prevalent in the South after Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves. Yes, we know you’ve been used to our benefit. You have been raped of your culture, your identity, your religion, your language, your parents, your wives, your husbands, your children,?your health… But can’t you just get over it and move on??Oh, you can stay here and brood for the rest of your life,?OR you can go back to Africa. Those are your two options, as we see it. This same attitude seems prevalent in the relationships between David and all his women – his daughter included.

LUCY AS A COMMODITY
When?David’s daughter Lucy is raped, her sense of being is forever changed. Only when it happens to “one of his own” does David try to protect her from men no different than himself. Still, she decides to stay on the farm, regardless of?the debilitating?fear that she will be violated again. She says in regard to her transgressors:

I think I am in their territory. They have marked me. They will come back for me … what if that is the price one has to pay for staying on? Perhaps that is how they look at it; perhaps that is how I should look at it too.

This idea of payment in terms of a sex/gender system is discussed in?Gayle Rubin’s theory?”The Traffic in Women.”

Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought, and sold … Women are transacted as slaves, serfs, and prostitutes,?but also simply as women. (Rubin 1673)

First off, Lucy’s acceptance of her role as payment suggests the strength of social structures oppressing women in Africa. To keep the life she creates and loves, she considers the cost as imposed by these men. It is also possible that these men didn’t take payment of their own accord. David?alludes to?Petrus’ involvement, which?seems to be substantiated when Petrus confidently claims the power to protect Lucy from a recurrence. If this is true, has Lucy?become a commodity for trade – as a woman? Has Petrus offered the sex/gender of?his neighbor?for his own personal gain? We can only suspect at this point, but I thinks it’s a pretty good hunch. He is a man with two wives, after all, and?what they mean to him is “pay, pay, pay.” Pretus won’t acknowledge that Lucy is the one who pays the highest price. She may be poisoned with HIV and has no idea yet?if AIDS is in her future. If so, will she even have a future in a country so limited in health care.

A side note that deserves further examination:
The sex/gender role is played out between two men and a woman. In light of Lucy’s sexual preference, does this deepen the wound?

LUCY AS BEING
Lucy’s decision to stay on the farm, regardless of the?danger,?lays claim on her being?much in the same way that?Fanon returns to Negritude.?

I defined myself as an absolute intensity of beginning. So I took up my Negritude, and with tears in my eyes I put its machinery back together again. What had been broken to pieces was rebuilt, reconstructed by the intuitive lianas of my hands. (Fanon 138)

Negritude embraces both the French meaning of black and derogatory Martinique meaning of?”nigger.”?Those who accept this inclusive definition?empower themselves?to redefine their own meaning. (As Dr. Phil says, we cannot change that which we do not acknowledge.) Lucy also embraces the duality?of her being,?encompassing who she was before as well as who she?is?after transgressions were commited?against her. This?provides no comfort in the face of being violated, as Fanon too experiences, but to relinquish that sense of?being, to retreat?and accept?the identity of victim as imposed by another,?would allow only for absolute?defeat.?

OBLIGATORY RANT
Interestingly, David is such a goddamn baby when he loses an ear. Lucy has her very soul damaged, questioning whether or not it exists, and she is still far braver than her wuss-ass father. This book might redeem itself yet… but?will it tell us WHY women?bear the shame of violation when it is men who are committing the crime?

Is anyone else missing pages 130-131 in the handout? With this omission in mind, the following is what I’ve gleaned from our reading:

COLONIALISM’S DOMINO EFFECT
That?colonialism instills the idea of other is nothing new. This topic has been addressed in literature since the time of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” and probably before. Thanks to the English Empire, the Irish, American Indians and Negros (to use Fanon’s term)?have all fallen prey to definitions such?as savage, uncivilized cannibals?. What is most distressing about Fanon’s piece, published in 1952,?is that the European cultural lens of the past has?been perpetuated with?such?longevity.

I analyzed my heredity, I made a complete audit of my ailment. I wanted to be typically Negro?- it was no longer possible. I wanted to be white – that was a joke. And when I tried, on the level?of ideas and intellectual activity, to reclaim my negritude, it was snatched away from me. Proof was present that my effort was only a term of the dialectic.?(132)

His vigorous and varied forms of retaliation only temporarily appease him. Holding fast to reason, anger, and negritude only fail him. To read Fanon’s piece, it’s difficult to know how to break the cycle.

COPING MECHANISMS
Fanon challenges Sarte, “friend of the colored peoples” (133),?who seeks to identify and?simultaneously block the source of the experience of being black, forgetting that “the Negro suffers in his body quite differently from the white man” (138).?The color of his skin?makes Fanon?a third party to his own his body (110),?fully and dysfunctionally aware of how he is seen through white eyes. Unlike a discrimination against the Jews, a Jew can become invisible in a sea of white. A?person with black skin is never afforded that luxury. While racial descrimination?requires the constant rebuilding of his identity, he returns finally?to a previous alignment with negritude, what Sarte describes as “the root of its own destruction … a transition and not a conclusion” (133).

Negritude?needs further explanation. It is the appreciation for all that being black encompasses, including history, culture and destiny. It not only strives to recognize the black colonial experience, it also attempts to redefine it. The?term, proudly coined?by Aim? C?saire, embraces the French meaning “black” as well as the derogatory Martinique term “nigger.” Likened to the Marxist view, C?saire is said to equate white men with capitalism and black men with the labor force. To see the structure of racism in this light, it is easy to connect?Althusser’s reproduction of labor,?and thus racism, as a self perpetuated machine.

PERPETUATED BY SURVIVAL
Sadly, Fanon sees no end to the cycle. He identifies the?fear of a realized black identity under the more fearful blue eye of a white society and points out that?one way to?break with the cycle is to explode.?Refusing to be anything other than whole, Fanon continually forces himself to see who he is as a whole, refusing to see a lack or to suffer the fate of an amputee (140). Embracing Negritude one more time, he cannot see himself without acknowledging who he is in the face of his own history.

CONNECTION
Interestingly, C?saire was not only a politician in Martinique at the time Fanon had returned?there, he?also wrote?”A Tempest,” a 70′s modernization of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Both deal with the residual questions and issues of colonization.

Keva and I have a strong affinity for “A Tempest” since acting it out last semester. I still have the?prop we beat our audience with. Props rule.

Leslie Marmon Silko Celebrates at SUNY Albany

On Tuesday, January 30, 2007, at 8:00 p.m. Leslie Marmon Silko performed an enjoyable reading at the New York State Writers Institute to celebrate Penguin Classics? 30th Anniversary Edition of Ceremony. This bestselling novel was Silko?s first, written in 1977. According to the New York State Writers Institute, it is ?the tale of a ?half-breed? World War II veteran and his battle against personal demons. Ceremony received the American Book Award, sold three quarters of a million copies, sparked a revolution in Native American literature, and has remained a major influence on younger generations of writers? (NYSWI). Silko has also written Laguna Woman: Poems (1974), the story collection Storyteller (1981), the novel Almanac of the Dead (1991), the essay collection, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays (1996), and the novel Gardens in the Dunes (1999). She received the Pushcart Prize for poetry in 1977, a MacArthur Foundation award in 1983, and was the youngest writer included in The Norton Anthology of Women’s Literature for her short story “Lullaby.”

In stark contrast with the scholarly suit who stiffly introduced her credentials as listed above, Silko tripped up the stage steps sporting faded blue jeans, sneakers and a dark tee shirt, waves of thick, black hair bouncing behind her. Her entrance was met with enthusiastic applause, filling the moderately attended Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center with a generous welcome. Under yellow lights on a stage bare but for the podium, Silko introduced herself on a more intimate level as a woman coming from an oral tradition of storytelling which inspired her to write since elementary school. She was going to read the portion of her book where Tayo, suffering from PTSD after WWII, is being taken to Betonie, a medicine man, because he doesn?t respond well to hospital treatment. The story is set within the Navaho Reservation in Gallup, NM. Rocking on her ankles as she spoke, Silko?s saddened voice explained that she knows from personal experience that this reservation has not improved in the 30 years since the book was first written. Promising to take questions after reading because, as she noted, she reads ?a lot? and has ?an opinion on everything,? Silko started on page 94.

With a powerful, biting voice and confident posture, occasionally reaching up with both hands to tame her wild hair, Silko echoed the harsh reality of reservation life, In one instance, Tayo sees a dying cottonwood tree where he used to play. In a moment of mental escape, he remembers the comfort of the shade it once provided, that these trees were more than ?just shade,? and the way the boys would throw the berry pods at each other, feeling the rush of the seeds exploding on impact. In this moment, ?in a world of crickets and wind and cottonwood trees, he was almost alive again; almost visible. The green waves of dead faces and the screams of the dying that had echoed in his head were buried? (96). Silko has a gift for contrasts like these, contrasts that jerk her audience from a lovely, safe place and hurl them face first into the horror of surviving the war. Visions of the joyous youth are polluted with death of the undead. It may seem that Tayo is feeling at ease in this childhood reverie, yet even in burial, the faces of war haunt him. He claims they are buried, that he is nearly alive, yet the screams scream on even in his memory of them.

Told he must leave, that the old men are talking about the trouble he has caused, we are led down a bleak memory lane as Tayo recalls his childhood along his journey to Betonie. It is here we learn that Tayo has few nostalgic memories to cling to. His mother, from what he remembers, is a prostitute who left him in the care of bar patrons, giving them a dollar to feed him. Living under bar tables by day, he was always hungry. ?When he found chewing gum stuck beneath the tables, he put it in his mouth and tried to keep it. He could not remember when he first knew that cigarettes would make him vomit if he ate them? (101) When temporarily taken from his mother and kept in a room full of white walls and cribs, Tayo ?cried for a long time, standing up in the bed with his chin resting on the top rail. He chewed the paint from the top rail, still crying, but gradually becoming interested in the way the paint peeled off the metal and clung to his front teeth? (101). With her strong economy of words, Silko illustrates with fine brush strokes, Tayo?s vulnerability at not more than the age of three, the denial of his mother?s love, his desperate need of food, and his childlike resiliency to somehow survive the pain of it all. Used gum and cigarette butts are not sustenance for a developing human being, and yet the young Tayo of memory knows nothing else.

Silko peppers her story with background characters which are inherently part of the landscape. At the podium, she read with compassion about the plight of Navajos, Hopis, Zunis, and Lagunas under a bridge. These were once entire nations of people who were now scattered and searching for work among the tourist trap of the Gallup Ceremonial Grounds. ?They walked like survivors, with dull vacant eyes, their fists clutching the coins [Tayo had] thrown to them. ? They were educated only enough to know that they wanted to leave the reservation; when they got to Gallup there weren?t many jobs that they could get? (106). The Gallup landscape people are but one example of those who occupy this territory. Tayo and his mother lived like that when he was small, until a fight broke out between some unruly men and the prostitutes. ?The police came. ? He watched them tear down the last of the shelters, and they piled the rags and coats they found and sprinkled them with kerosene? (103). The police did their best to destroy these communities of impoverished people, breaking apart families in the process. Escaping to the stink of the tamarack, Tayo never saw his mother again after she was hauled away that day. Many years later, people still live under bridges. Hauling them away is not the cure.

Taking questions after the reading, most querries were structured around Silko?s personal political views. By writing about wine, poverty, prostitution, shelters, rags, comfortless smells, sounds and sights, Silko lifts the veil from the multiple horrors of racism and oppression on a very personal level. She spoke of the rape of Indian lands through Uranium mining and of the people with the introduction of alcohol and gambling. Having experienced these atrocities and their after effects first hand, it is no wonder Silko could create such an articulate and passionately crafted narrative. As Robert M. Nelson of Richmond University notes:

The disease that has infected the people, including Silko?s protagonist Tayo, is the old bane known at Laguna as Ck?o?yo medicine, which takes several new, but precedented, forms in the novel: World War II and its dreadful fallout, including such new art forms as nuclear fission and the atomic weapons capable of destroying all life (Nelson).

To each and every scarification, of both her land and her people, Silko speaks with conviction, ?Despite the appearance of war, corruption and chaos, don?t lose hope. Spiritual healing persists on parallel but different plains.? She believes this emphatically and spoke so assuredly, she convinced me to believe the same even after hearing about the atrocities in such vivid detail.

What I?ve learned about writing through Leslie Morman Silko is that it is most rewarding to write about what you are most passionate about. Experimentation with form is one thing, but the way to truly reach people and raise awareness where little light is shed is to simply write from the heart. The world of settings and images, populated with characters ripe for contemplation, is already at an author?s fingertips. That passion, as Silko has made evident, reaches through the words and strums the chords of compassion within the depths of the soul. The dank detail we fear to face in our lives must be confronted and recorded. A lifetime of detail, snippets of conversations, people we love, hate, and love to hate are already stewing under the surface. They simply need to be wrestled out of hiding and brought into the light.

Works Cited
Nelson, Robert M. ?Leslie Marmon Silko: storyteller? Joy Porter and Kenneth Roemer, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 245-56. University of Richmond, Virginia. 1 May 2007 .
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. New York State Writers Institute, State University of New York. 1 May 2007 .

The three poems I read from Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry are ?Heavy Blue Veins? by Luis J. Rodriguez (5), ?Crazy Horse Speaks? by Sherman Alexie(237), and Joseph Bruchac’s ?Birdfoot?s Grampa? (266). I actually read more than that but began to feel like an ambulance chaser, intrigued by the racist gore. ?Heavy Blue Veins? confused me. I was unsure about why the woman was cutting her ankles. ?Crazy Horse Speaks? was right up the alley of my other class in which we are reading Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. My favorite though is ?Birdfoot?s Grampa.?

Initially, ?Birdfoot?s Grampa? is not as emotionally difficult as many of the others. On the surface, the poem depicts an act of kindness rather than a reaction to the unkind. Birdfoot?s Grampa saves toads in the road after a rain. Of course, between the lines is where the tragedy lies. These toads are displaced from their homes, much like the American Indians with their weathered brown skin, by an influx of water symbolic of white men flooding into Indian Territory in the name of Manifest Destiny. The toads are unable to find their way clear of danger having been blinded by white headlights. This is reminiscent of the US government?s deception of American Indians in order to steal their land. If the American Indians did not step aside, the result was often a mass slaughter. The difference between history and this poem is that Indians were overrun rather than run over, as would be the fate of the toads if it weren?t for the consideration of Birdfoot?s Grampa. He is an Indian with high regard for the spirit of the Earth and all her creatures. This seemingly small act of protecting each toad demonstrates that no life is unworthy or insignificant. His conscience demands that he live in harmony with all creatures, regardless of the advancement from horses to cars, although the whites believed their advancement of weaponry earned them the right to claim superiority. While Birdfoot, the grandson, is initially annoyed at the constant disruption in their journey, he gains understanding of life?s value by learning from the wise old man. The Indian tradition is passed down through the genealogical lines as they are depicted in the title.

My thesis states that Paul D, in Toni Morrison?s Beloved, must define what ?manhood? is for himself by exploring meaning as deduced from situations he experiences as a man, as well as analyzing definitions supplied by the people in his life. His best understanding comes from the combination of remembering his fellow ?Sweet Home Men,? and recognizing where he and Sethe fit together in the face of slavery and racism.
By contrasting white Mr. Garner?s meaning of a man with that of Schoolteacher?s, as does Paul D, conflict arises in the definition. Is he Garner?s man, one with the freedom to think, speak and argue his point? Is he Schoolteacher?s slave, not even a man, a slave with lesser value than one who can reproduce freely? Paul D is trapped within both arenas and yet fully believes neither. Slavery removes any normalcy from the lives of slaves, not allowing them to fit within the white meaning, and standing in the way of the creation of their own. Mary Carden, in ?Models of Memory and Romance: The Dual Endings of Toni Morrison?s Beloved? discusses the ways in which white definitions prevent Paul D from being head of his house or protector of his family, which I would like to use to expand the scope of my original paper.

In my close reading of Paul D?s observance of Sixo and Halle, false layers of white manhood are peeled away. Respect for life and caring for another without ownership is at the heart of true manhood. This is supported by Deborah Sitter?s essay ?The Making of a Man: Dialogic Meaning in Beloved? when she addresses Sixo?s superior African manhood, as embodied in a man with darker skin, thicker language, and the propensity to dance among trees versus that of oppressive white plantation owners finding manhood in their guns. Sixo wants connection of family with the Thirty-Mile Woman because she puts him back together. Halle too is a man to Paul D, supportive to his wife without owning her. There is evidence of what manhood should be at Sweet Home, a reflection in the abnormal environment of the plantation.

It is also important to understand why Paul D?s story is told along side Sethe?s in the novel. What trees mean to Paul D and Sethe are inherent to the argument of what a man is as described by Sitter. Sethe?s tree scar from white Schoolteacher and Paul D?s tree friend ?Brother? where he bonded with his brothers represent very different interpretations. The images cannot merge. As Paul D defines what it means for him to be a man, Sethe is defining for herself what it means to be a woman. How does one story validate the other? Can they discover for themselves the meaning of ?manhood? or ?womanhood,? or is it necessary for them to function together to reveal that identity? I believe this is a joint effort, the goal realized when they understand how manhood and womanhood ?fit.? Carden supports this theory by saying romance transforms ?the unspeakable? into normative family and community.

I choose this topic because Paul D?s story is ?put next to? Sethe?s by Morrison, just as Paul D wants it in the end. While Sethe?s story is central to the novel, Paul D is no less important. His and Sethe?s discovery of self is not only a personal journey, but a joint discovery dependant upon one another. When they finally come together, there is evidence of connection, understanding and recognition of one by, in and of the other.

Annotated Bibliography

Sitter, Deborah Ayer. ?The Making of a Man: Dialogic Meaning in Beloved.? African American Review. 26.1 Women Writers Issue (1992): 17-29

? Summary: The thesis of Sitter?s work is ?What goes on in the ghostly subtext of Beloved is an intense debate over the meaning of manhood and the possibility for enduring heterosexual love.? She supports this thesis by comparing the dialogue of Paul D?s story with that of Sethe?s, comparing and contrasting what trees mean fro each of them and how, when they disagree and disconnect, a forest springs up between them. For Paul D, trees symbolize his feelings toward his manhood depending upon his situation while Sethe?s tree/scar symbolizes a different type of manhood. Sixo?s version of manhood comes from respect for all life versus the definition of ?men? by white overseers of Sweet Home, pitting an African version of manhood against a white version. The white version is what enslaves rather than frees Paul D and Sethe from experiencing ?normalcy.? They must cast off the chains of language that bind them and realize their own meaning while suffering the effects of slavery. This is the only way they can deal with the killing of Sethe?s daughter without Paul D seeing Sethe as an animal like Schoolteacher, and for Sethe to see Paul D as a man regardless of Schoolteacher?s collar and chains.

? Reflection: I plan to use this source to support my thoughts on Paul D learning the true meaning of the word from his fellow ?Sweet Home Men.? This also supports my belief that Paul D and Sethe must tell their story together, comparing and contrasting their assigned and discovered meanings of ?manhood? and ?womanhood.? Sitter?s work seems firmly rooted in the text and quotes from Morrison, countering Stanley Crouch?s accusations that Morrison is a ?literary conjure woman.? Sitter?s approach is to defend Morrison?s credibility as Morrison questions the ?nether regions of language.?

Carden, Mary Paniccia. ?Models of Memory and Romance: The Dual Endings of Toni Morrison?s Beloved.? Twentieth Century Literature. 45.4 (1999): 401-427.

? Summary: Carden?s thesis: ?While much of the criticism on Beloved approaches it primarily as a story of the consequences of slavery and only secondarily as a romance story, I will argue that the novel demands to be read with both narrative lines in the foreground, and that this double sidedness produces contradictions and oppositions that are never more powerfully problematic than in Morrison?s choices for narrative outcome.? She supports this by arguing that romance plot defines normalcy through a heterosexual relationship. As a result of slavery, Paul D and Sethe haven?t the luxury of this setting. Paul D is unable to be ?man? of his house and must ?borrow? manhood from his master.? (Carden 405). By traveling, Paul D gains power over ?place? and when he settles in with Sethe in an effort to exert his authority, this fails because Sethe is not accustomed to giving up that role herself. Just as the family begins to ?coalesce,? Beloved arrives to fracture the family with her own fractured story. She briefly leads Paul D back to the manhood definition he learned at Sweet Home but still, there is no normalcy allowed any of these characters. Infanticide fractures family and identity further by bringing to light Paul D?s entrenchment in white definitions of manhood, motherhood and judgment in white terms. He must adjust his ideal of what is normal as Sethe insists it was the only option. Paul D?s image of Sethe depends upon her ability to recognize him as a man. In the first ending, Paul D can either be commended for loving big and coming back or seen as a ?return to patriarchal scripts.? The second ending depicts Beloved as pregnant history of loss, and yet ?not a story to pass on.? (Carden 422)

? Reflection: Carden?s explanation of a lack of normalcy, family, home, etc. helps explain Paul D?s questioning of his manhood and offers hope when he and Sethe join together. While she offers one interpretation of the ending to read as though Paul D should be commended for breaking the barrier of white man?s language and definition, she also offers that Paul D can be representative of traditional male dominance as he rescues a weak Sethe from her memories. I can see this point of view as well, although it doesn?t fit in my shorter essay. Carden?s angle is that the novel must be read as a narrative about the effects of slavery and as a romance together. The problem with this is that, as Morrison has stated in interviews, this is not a novel about Slavery. It is about people who are unable to realize their place and identity because of white definitions. The shift in focus here is subtle but it matters.

The following is my preliminary analysis of the text Beloved:

In Toni Morrison?s novel Beloved, Paul D?has had no father?to teach him what it means to be a man. He must deduce what that means for himself by evaluating the various definitions provided by others he encounters. At Sweet Home, Mr. Garner calls Paul D a man, but once schoolteacher takes Garner?s place, the applicability of that term is challenged. Paul D?s best understanding of the concept eventually comes from remembering his fellow ?Sweet Home Men,? and recognizing what he feels for Sethe.

At Sweet Home, under the direction of Mr. Garner, Paul D firmly believes that he and his four fellow slaves are men, ?so named and called by one who would know? (Morrison 147). According to Mr. Garner, their owner, manhood resides in the ability to make choices, and Garner provides options from which to choose. He encourages them, like paid labor, to think freely about how to best get the job done and to challenge him when they disagree with his methods. Paul D explains, ?In their relationship with Garner was true metal: they were believed and trusted, but most of all they were listened to? (Morrison 147). At this stage in his life, Paul D?s feels manhood is not simply a definition from a higher authority, but the ability of that person to recognize value in his thoughts and feelings. He knows this is close but feels the need to investigate further.

When schoolteacher takes Garner?s position as overseer, Paul D begins to doubt the validity of Garner?s label. Schoolteacher clips ?Paul D. First his shotgun, then his thoughts, for schoolteacher didn?t take advice from Negroes? (Morrison 259). When offering input once valued by Garner, he is now punished for what schoolteacher calls ?talking back.? Schoolteacher places more value in the money Paul D?s body can collect. Overhearing his slave value of $900, and with nothing to compare that number to, Paul D cannot grasp his worth even in these terms. Never believing that Schoolteacher?s assessment is correct, Paul D continues to remain strong, regardless of the humiliation he suffers when treated more like an animal than a man, forced to wear a collar, chains, leg irons and a bit.

Beloved is the one who makes Paul D question his manhood most. In an effort to make him leave, she moves him about the house like a rag doll, making ?him wonder if schoolteacher was right? (Morrison 148). He recalls the times he has been a man, most honorably when he watched ?another man, whom he loved better than his brothers, roast without a tear just so the roasters would know what a man was like. And it was he, that man? who could not go or stay put where he wanted in 124 ? shame? (Morrison 148). Beloved?s manipulation of Paul D?s control, particularly in light of his ability to display the most stoic resolve, is the ultimate transgression for Paul D. This lack of ability to control his own will is more upsetting than Beloved?s seduction, a reminder of the shame he felt while abusing cows to spare Sethe from his sexual urges. More demeaning than likening him to an animal, his lack of control over his own will is the point where this girl defeats his perception of manhood.

Paul D, having been pushed out of Sethe?s house by Beloved, recalls Sixo?s thirty mile trip to see a woman, and thinks, ?Now there was a man? (Morrison 26), understanding that his own lack of dedication to any one person does not compare. ?Sixo, and even Halle; it was always clear to Paul D that those two were men whether Garner said so or not? (Morrison 260) Paul D is aware here that Halle and Sethe, Sixo and the Thirty-Mile Woman had become connected somehow. Paul D is stung by his lack of connection and questions his manhood, ashamed of the reasons surrounding his leaving the only woman who ever made him want to stay.

Paul D does eventually discover where his manhood comes from. First he remembers what Sixo says about the Thirty-Mile Woman, ?She is a friend of my mind? The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.? (Morrison 321) Paul D offers this same kind of reconstruction to Sethe and she wonders, ?If he bathes her in parts will the parts hold?? The two are so fractured, like their families and their shattered hearts, it takes one to piece the other together. Neither can do it for themselves. Sethe does this for Paul D when schoolteacher punishes his attempted escape. ?She never mentioned or looked at it, so he did not have to feel the shame of being collared like a beast. Only this woman Sethe could have left him his manhood like that.? (Morrison 322) Paul D?s manhood is not defined by whitemen. It resides in the tenderness offered by Sethe when she looks past the shackles that bind him like an animal, seeing him for who he truly is.

Opening to the past, living in the present, and searching for a future is what makes a person whole. To deny any experience means part of that person dies with the memory or hope lost. While Paul D is unable to experience all three on his own, he learns to feel again along side Sethe, and she with him. ?He wants to put his story next to hers? (Morrison 322) Together, they allow for the full experience of life by helping each other to digest the past, one holding the pain of the other when it is too much to bear. Through their reciprocal love, honor, respect and understanding, Paul D discovers that he always has been a true man. He simply couldn?t recognize it until Sethe showed him how to look beyond what bound him from the outside. Through her love, she helped him feel the strength to face all parts of himself like a whole man.

Work Cited:

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Random House, 2004.

In Act I of “The Tempest,” William Shakespeare paints Prospero as a character who possesses a great deal of power, quite analogous to that of the King of England. Attributing this power to his education in ?liberal arts,? Prospero?s enchanting abilities appear to stem from his study of books, the donning of a magical cloak, and by carrying a magical staff, much as the King?s crown and vestiges, although not powerful themselves, lend to the visual definition of his authority. While each of these items do supply Prospero with the ability to cast spells, it is his ?art? of conversation that affords him the most power.

As Paul Brown remarks in ??This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine?: The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism,? Prospero calls to his various listeners ?and invites them to recognize themselves as subjects of his discourse, as beneficiaries of his civil largess.? (Brown 218) The technique with which Prospero bestows his ?civil largess? upon his daughter, Miranda, and his servant, Ariel, varies in degree of applied patience, yet it conclusively achieves the desired effect as each bend to his will. While Caliban, Prospero?s slave, offers the vilest resistance, Prospero demands compliance by employing the use of painful threats, only occasionally requiring additional reinforcement through action. Prospero?s command of language, ultimately his most useful tool, influences and manipulates the thoughts, ideas and behaviors of all the play?s participants, including those of the audience.

Miranda?s character is akin to the citizens of England, each governed by the power and guidance of their rulers. Through suggestive conversation, Prospero educates Miranda on the subject of their history, molding her perspective to ready her for a future orchestration of events. As he begins the tale, Prospero asks Miranda to, ??pluck my magic garment from me. So, [laying down his magic cloak and staff] Lie there my art.? (Shakespeare 14, 24) Here Prospero engages in conversation exclusively, making a point to shed all other forms of power. With this simple action, Shakespeare demonstrates the innate power of Prospero?s persuasion and how it is used to educate and thus govern Miranda with the provision of a singular perspective. This directly reflects England?s own normative view as colonizer, enforcing the belief that English culture is superior both within and beyond the country?s borders.

Prospero takes pride in his ability to educate. He speaks passionately of this role in regard to Miranda, ?Here have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princess? can, that have more time for vainer hours and tutors not so careful.? (Shakespeare 19, 171) Prospero has been grooming Miranda to be obedient all her life, and she, a naive student, exclaims, ?Heavens thank you for ?t!? (Shakespeare 20, 175) In his technique of reinforcing his daughter?s loyalty and attention by repeatedly asking, ?Dost thou attend me?? (Shakespeare 16, 78) requires Miranda to engage in the dialogue and actively confirm, ?Your tale, sir, would cure deafness,? (Shakespeare 17, 107) In this way, Miranda reflects the desired perspective as it is presented to her, satisfying Prospero?s need for loyalty and support in his plot to resume his dukedom. As Brown explains, ?A major strategy of this scheme is to engineer another courtship between Miranda and the son of his enemy ? his daughter having been duly educated for such a role.? (Brown 219) In grooming Miranda to marry Ferdinand, Prospero intends to place her like a pawn among royalty, ensuring his ties to political authority.

In Ariel, Prospero?s servant, Shakespeare depicts an English colonizer, one sympathetic toward the American Indians. Ariel proves useful in forging a foundation for Prospero?s new world order but must be commanded to continue in the face of unpleasant tasks, particularly those he believes will cause harm. Applying the approach used with Miranda, Prospero begins to question ?Dost thou forget from what torment I did free thee?? (Shakespeare 22, 250) Ariel challenges that he has not. With this exchange Prospero begins a detailed call and response, ?Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax? Thou hast. Where was she born?? (Shakespeare 23, 261) Recounting this story of how Prospero freed Ariel from the witch?s curse actively recalls the details of Arial?s torment and debt to Prospero for release. Ironically, this freedom from the pine has merely released him into a new form of bondage. (Brown, 220) According to Brown, ?This operation of constant reminding acts as ?symbolic violence.? What is really at issue is the underlining of a power relation.? (Brown 220) Illustrating a bending will, Ariel replies, ?Pardon, master. I will be correspondent to command and do my spriting gently.? (Shakespeare 24) As Ariel submits, Prospero is able to expand his power to that of the spritely realm with Ariel to do his bidding.

Caliban, having occupied the island long before Prospero, represents the idea of ?savage? as it exists within the colonization of Ireland and America. Prospero tries in vain to educate Caliban, to civilize him in the ways in which Prospero is accustomed. Miranda too, as an extension of Prospero, teaches Caliban the language common to her and her father. In regard to this education, Caliban is not grateful for their ?gift,? but rather feels enslaved by it. ?You taught me language and my profit on ?t is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you for learning me your language!? (Shakespeare 27, 367) Before the arrival of Prospero and Miranda, Caliban understands his thoughts perfectly well, explaining that they didn?t give him knowledge, but only the means to express what he already knows in a way they understand. He too can understand their demands as they bark orders at him. Brown believes Caliban ?recognizes himself as a linguistic subject of the master language. Caliban?s refusal marks him as obdurate yet he must voice this in a curse in the language of civility … Whatever Caliban does with this gift announces his capture by it.? (Brown 220) In his unwillingness to easily submit, Caliban poses a real challenge for Prospero. While still embracing his mastery over communication, Prospero must change his approach. Keeping the upper hand, he incorporates the use of threats backed by real action, making Caliban submit out of fear.

At the play?s end, as so ordered by Shakespeare, the shipwrecked aristocrats suffer to Prospero?s content, extracting sufficient remorse from their maddened state with no lasting harm dealt by his hand. His daughter, too, is arranged neatly in the arms of King Alonzo?s son, assuring her royal future and his. Ariel is freed for a job well done, and even the stubborn Caliban all too easily sees the light after falling further from grace, accepting Prospero as a more desirable master than Stephano. Each fragment is neatly tied up with one exception. In what way does Shakespeare deal with Prospero?

By educating the island inhabitants as he sees fit, Prospero gets an unforeseen education of his own. During the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand, Prospero is startled with the realization of his aloneness without her. Fiedler with the idea that Shakespeare ?appears more and more to divest himself of the very power he has so relentlessly sought. … even as Prospero?s game plan succeeds he himself is played out, left without a move as power over his daughter slips away.? (Brown 226) Prospero speaks of this dissolve of power, as well as the erasure of existence when he says, ?We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded in sleep.? (Shakespeare 70, 156) Caliban?s attempt on Prospero?s life leads Prospero to look more closely at his inability to civilize the savage. He raves, ?A Devil, born a Devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost!? (Shakespeare 71, 188) And lastly, in an effort of revenge on his brother, Prospero learns compassion, characterized by his epiphany that ?The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.? (Shakespeare 75, 28) Brown believes, ?At the ?close? of the play Prospero is in danger of becoming the other to the narrative declaration of his own project, which is precisely the ambivalent position Caliban occupies.? (Brown 228) and is unsatisfied with how Shakespeare handles Prospero?s abandonment of magical external power with no ?triumph for colonialism? (Brown 228). With this I disagree.

At the time Shakespeare writes “The Tempest,” no societal answers existed in response to the play?s questions. Shakespeare appears to synthesize the culmination of Prospero?s lessons to demonstrate the hope for England of one day being wiser, more accepting of others, and willing to forfeit control where it already exists rather than to attempt the civilization of the world. As the rest of Prospero?s powers fade, his reign over language is not lost. ?Now my charms are all o?erthrown, and what strength I have ?s mine own.? (Shakespeare 86, 1) The power of persuasion has always been an innate part of his being only to fade when Prospero himself expires. He uses his remaining capacity for language to appeal to the audience. He seeks their applause and thus forgiveness for his character flaws. This may also be a plea from Shakespeare himself to forgive weak plot point. The questions raised are left to us, the audience to ponder and answer for ourselves.

Works Cited:

Shakespeare, William, et al. “The Tempest” Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. William Shakespeare, The Tempest; A Case Study in Critical Controversy, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2000, 10-87

Brown, Paul. ?This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine?; The Tempest as the Discourse of Colonialism? William Shakespeare, “The Tempest;” A Case Study in Critical Controversy, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2000, 205-229

A Summary of Paul Brown’s “‘This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine’: The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism”

In his essay, Paul Brown explains that Shakespeare?s “The Tempest” reaches beyond mere contemplation of colonialism and more toward ?intervention in an ambivalent and even contradictory discourse.? (205) Brown feels that Shakespeare attempts, in his narrative, to suitably redefine the power relations between classes, gender and cultures, but fails to accomplish this task.

Three connections within complex colonial discourse, according to Brown, are ?class discourse (masterlessness), a race discourse (savagism) and a politically and courtly sexual discourse? (209) as illustrated by the desire of John Rolf, a Virginia planter, for Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, chief-of-chiefs. Using Rolf?s letter asking for the Governor?s blessing over their marriage, Brown shows Rolf?s belief that the power of British civility can transform the ?other? or American Indian, even if sexual desire may threaten to undermine that mastery. (207) This, in turn, is compared with Prospero?s narrative in which his ruling power is determined by his control over his subjects? sexuality, particularly Miranda?s and Caliban?s. Brown argues that the colonizer seeks to control, repress and exploit the ?other? even as the ?other? has beneficial offerings that may erode that civil order.

Moving beyond the American example, Brown examines British counterculture and Irish ?others? to illustrate the colossal range of contemporary colonialist discourse. He discusses the perceived threat within England of anti-social man, the masterless who require ?surveillance, classification, expulsion and punishment? (210) as Brown believes is embodied in “The Tempest” by Stephano and Trunculo. Their threat of counter-order serves to unify rulers in their authority, channeling a positive civil service. (211) Brown next points out evidence of this within the context of Ireland. It was in need of reordering and of ?a colony where the savage other needed to be civilized conquered and dispossessed.? (214) Masterless Irish were especially targeted, and jesters like Trinculo were exemplary of that lot. (210) To further tie Ireland to “The Tempest,” Brown offers the idea that the uninhabited island (of civility) offered not only the opportunity for the expansion of civility, but the undoing of it as well, freedom being a temptation. (216)

Brown says the narrative of the play ?is always related to questions of power.? (218) The tempestuous storm was produced by Shakespeare to show Prospero?s mastery over the island. He demonstrates his control over his listeners as he narrates, establishing himself as father and educator of Miranda, rescuer of Ariel, colonizer of Caliban, and corrector of errant aristocrats. Prospero?s function is to divide the characters along gender lines as with the malleable Miranda and irreformable Caliban, and along class lines such as in the usurping aristocrats versus unmastered plebians, conjuring colonial discourse. (221)

This binarism is accompanied by the aesthetic ordering of power through ?narrative to maintain social control.? (223) ?Euphemistic? use of romantic rhetoric as well as gifts of freedom and education underline the non-exploitive representation of power as when Caliban is taught to speak Prospero?s language. (223) This language is seen by Caliban as linguistic capture and restraint, not a gift. (220) Alternately, to ?denigrate the masterless? (225), as with Trinculo and Stephano, Caliban is placed in a more positive light. His eloquence is revealed when describing the island and how its music causes him to dream. This dream, according to Brown, is the apothesis of colonial discourse, a wish for release, a desire for utopian powerlessness. (225)

Prospero too desires to ?divest himself of the very power he has so relentlessly sought? (226), as is the plausible threat of freedom to the civilized. After losing his power over his daughter, the play ends not with his resumption of public duty but his retirement. Brown asks, ?Is this final distancing from the narrative an unraveling of Prospero?s project?? (227) The disruption of the marriage masque by Caliban?s plot leads to Prospero?s declaration that all representation is illusory, yet he ?goes on to meet the threat and triumphs, and thus completes his narrative.? (227) Brown is troubled by the ?ambivalence? here between narrative declaration and dramatic struggle. ?The threat must be present to validate colonial discourse; yet if present it cannot but impel the narrative to further action. The process is interminable. And yet the play has to end.? (228) It is for this reason, Brown believes, that “The Tempest” declares no triumph for colonialism but simply offers up it?s characteristic operations.

ASSESSMENT AND RATIONALE

Paul Brown aligns himself with the post-colonial school of criticism. This is demonstrated by his use of intertextuality and his goal to show the oppression of colonized peoples. He talks not only of language as a binding factor in colonization as given to Caliban by Prospero and Miranda, but he also examines the euphemistic manipulation of language by Prospero to establish and maintain dominance. In exploration of the colonized people?s reaction, Brown studies Caliban and in what ways he speaks out against his plight. In the end, he looks for ways to change the system of colonization and finds ambivalent answers in Shakespeare?s interpretation of order.

I am interested in this essay because it supports my initial interpretation of Prospero?s role in “The Tempest.” Paul Brown?s exploration of Prospero?s art of conversation and the power he holds over his fellow characters resonates with my assessment of that power. In addition, I have learned much from Brown?s essay in the context of colonization. This information has influenced me to push beyond my limited interpretation based on New Criticism and complicate it within the context of events occurring at the time the play was written. For me, this legitimizes and expands the themes present in my original assessment of Prospero.

Work Cited:

Brown,?Paul. ?This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine?; The Tempest as the Discourse of Colonialism? William Shakespeare, “The Tempest;” A Case Study in Critical Controversy, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2000, 205-229

I took my professor’s suggestion, sitting for several hours over the weekend with my copy of “The Tempest” and a pencil. I started back at Act 1, picking most of the descriptive notes from the bottom of the page and transferring them into the text. Reading through once more, with those in place, I made notes about the plot in the margins. As I made my way through Act III, it was obvious that I had learned much along the way. Still, I continued to transfer many of the notes, even if I didn?t think I needed them, because this made the double entendres far more apparent and enjoyable.

The difference between ?getting the gist? and picking up the humorous subtleties brought a whole new dimension to life. The whole interaction about chickens and foul was lost on me the first time through. When seeing a performance, the actors? physical cues and tone help identify Shakespeare?s play on language and the running jokes referenced throughout. In reading, I truly miss the cues. It was good to discover that the more effort I put in, the more I was rewarded with enjoyment. All this talk about Shakespeare being such a drag had me doubting how much I?d like him.

Beyond addressing the language, I did have some questions about what happened between some of the characters. In Act III, scene I, it seemed rather forward of Miranda to ask Ferdinand to marry her. Am I judging from a perspective outside the social norm for the day?

In Scene III, Caliban seems to finally speak without venom when he describes the island and his relationship to it. He talks of the noises that lull him and from what he finds comfort. Why does Shakespeare suddenly give us this new glimpse of the character in alight we?ve never seen and yet in the midst of convincing Stephano to kill Prospero?

Also, is Prospero really as magical as he boasts himself to be? It seems he has a genius mind for orchestrating events, but beyond lulling his daughter to sleep, becoming invisible, and freeing Ariel from the tree, he seems to rely much more on Ariel?s handiwork than his own.