D: It’s like we are still hated. It’s like still people out there who hate us and we can’t fix them, so we’re not that free, but we are free because we don’t have to worry about having to go to a all white school and they are going to judge you, even though there is probably still people like that, but at least they aren’t terribly how it was before.
(Interview, May 24, 2016)
It seems that Lucille Clifton’s poem, in its theme of celebrating one’s own identity in the face of oppression, opened up Diamond mind to considering what she has to be thankful for in relationship to her ancestors and their work that allowed her
freedom. She understood her identity as related to a history of civil rights warriors who had fought in the face of oppression. She realized that this is not as simple a proclamation as it might seem. There is still work to be done. She reflected that she still, in some ways, felt hated because of her racial identity.
Diamond, through her poem and the discussion of the poem, displayed a sophisticated critique of her relationship to the world. She demonstrated her complicated feelings toward freedom—the acknowledgement of and subsequent gratefulness for her ancestors who fought so diligently for her rights, and, further, her lamentation that there is still so much work to go to be truly free. She also expressed her gratefulness for being located outside of whiteness, providing a
nuanced lens to school segregation, seeing it as actually having the positive affect of shielding her from the hatred of white people who she implies are oppressive. Her critical self-celebration revealed that her identity included her attachment to her Black freedom-fighting lineage. This self-celebratory poem and her reflection exposed her understanding of progress and its attachment to the struggle of her people, and also the desire to do more, to continue the movement toward freedom that her ancestors started. Her celebration, then, located her in a trajectory towards freedom, neither at the beginning of this journey, nor at the end.
“A Short Note to My Very Critical and Well-Beloved Friends and Comrades”: Resisting Dominant Narratives through Poetry
As we continued through the curriculum, June Jordan was another foremother to the Unnormal Sisterhood who wrote politically, personally, and poetically in critical celebration of herself and other Black people. Jordan was a contemporary of Lucille Clifton, also born in 1936. Her work spanned the political to the personal, and crossed genre including narrative, poetry, essay, and journalism. Her writing traces such topics as her childhood as a Black girl in New York City, being mentored by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, her activist work through the Civil Rights Era, and her continued fight for justice across her life span (Kinloch, 2006). We used Jordan’s poem, “A Short Note to My Very Critical and Well-Beloved Friends and Comrades” as another mentor text that rebelled against negative perceptions of women and girls of color perpetuated by dominant ideologies.
I felt this poem was a gateway for a critical conversation about the varying and often conflicting messages girls of color get about respectability as well as a call
for girls of color to declare their independence from the onslaught of messages they receive about who they should be. Kelly Wissman (2009) used this poem with her Black female students, finding, “This poem provide a compelling entry way for discussions as well as for writing that gave the girls opportunities to name hegemonic discourses. In addition the last line especially provided language to speak back to these interlocutors and the assumptions they made” (p.41). The poem reads:
First they said I was too light Then they said I was too dark Then they said I was too different Then they said I was too much the same Then they said I was too young
Then they said I was too old
Then they said I was too interracial
Then they said I was too much a nationalist Then they said I was too silly
Then they said I was too angry Then they said I was too idealistic
Then they said I was too confusing all together: Make up your mind! They said. Are you militant
or sweet? Are you vegetarian or meat? Are you straight or are you gay?
And I said, Hey! It’s not about my mind. (Jordan, 2005)
I introduced this poem to the girls in response to the conversations in the group about issues like perception and how others viewed them. Especially in reflection about pieces like the “My Name” responses, I thought I would be important to have the girls delve into the ideas of how we are perceived and how that relates to how we perceive ourselves.
After reading this poem, I invited the girls to discuss it. During this conversation, Seraphina and Diamond both brought up ideas about the need to
disregard what others say about you. This idea permeated the rest of the
conversation and writing the girls did that day. The next literacy engagement we engaged to build off of their conversations was inspired by an activity run by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz at the 2013 Ethnography Forum. In this engagement, the girls created Venn Diagrams, one side of which was labeled, “How Others See Me” the other side of which read “How I See Myself” (see Figure 4.2).
These Venn diagrams reflected a very specific pattern. The “How Others See Me” was overwhelmingly negative, while “How I See Myself” was overwhelmingly
positive. Folded into this pattern existed instances of how the girls addressed issues of race and culture explicitly. For instance, Halsey brought up the ways that she was often labeled as “Chinese,” while she identified herself as “Asian” on the “How I See Myself” side of the diagram. This distinction points to her understanding and experiences as being flattened into an Asian American monolith, a trend she continues to unpack across the Unnormal Sisterhood meetings. Halsey was able to begin to apply a critical eye to the racist practices that often devalue her complexity and her unique identity and categorize her as “Chinese,” a stand in term used to denote a monolithic Asian identity. In this particular text, she identified herself as “Asian,” though, often, across the club, she would more specifically talk about her pride in her Vietnamese identity.
Another trend that arose in these Venn diagrams was that some of the dichotomies that came through in the girls’ work often reflected their perceptions about stereotypes about their intersecting identities as well as how they rejected of those labels. These dichotomies are painful to read as they show girls of color, so young, already so aware of the brutality of the “arrogant perceptions” (Lugones, 1987) cast on them from Eurocentric culture. For instance, Seraphina’s Venn Diagram reflects that she believed other see her as dominant, while she saw herself as not only average, but quiet, rejecting the label of dominant. Ciara, on the one hand stated that she believed people see her as fat, dumb, and ugly, but claimed to see herself as big, beautiful, and smart. Halsey listed weak, useless, and sensitive as how others might see her, while she described seeing herself as confident, smart, caring, and loving. The girls selected the specific words on the “How Others See Me”
side of the Venn Diagram that seem to reflect the arrogant perceptions of
Eurocentric culture that diminishes, deficitizes, shames, and blasphemes girls of color on multiple levels—their appearance, their personalities, their intellect, their utility in the world. For these girls, though, they at least understood that these perceptions should not be believed, as they projected that they see themselves in positive light.
However, it did become clear that some of the Eurocentric values that cast these girls of color in a negative light seeped into their own ideologies and self perception. Ciara, for one, used the word “fat” in a negative way. Many women of color body image activists are pushing against the idea that “fat” is a negative quality (Salgado, 2017; Shackelford, 2016; Stanley, 2018), as they feel is a term worth
reclaiming in the face of oppressive Eurocentric values that shame fat women and attach a slew of negative associations to fatness. Although Ciara claimed “big” as an affirmative descriptor that she lines up with her other positive self-perceptions, she still rejected the specific word “fat” aligning it with negative attributes.
Giselle also started to unpack the ways she felt seen by the world and in this attempt to gain control of her image, ended up reflecting a privileging of Eurocentric features. Giselle addressed how she was framed as “tanned skinn” by others, but saw herself as “light skinn.” It is notable and unfortunate that, for her, “tanned skinn” lined up with negative perceptions, including “stupid, afraid, can’t be taken seriously, mean, ok looking,” that she stated other people project onto her. Thus the association of her tanned skin as a negative attribute came through. Further reifying this idea, she claimed to sees herself as “light skinn,” listing this alongside positive
attributes like confident, loving, sweet, and beautiful. It seems that she had
internalized some of the ideologies of colorism, placing her value in her lightness. Her categorizing of dark skin as negative and her internalization of the desirability of light skin reflected a desire for a proximity to whiteness. This was an issue that came up across the club, as discussed in Kathleen’s privileging of her British
ancestry. Giselle’s association of light skin with positive attributes recapitulated this issue into our conversation, pointing to the pervasiveness of Eurocentric beauty standards across racial boundaries for girls of color. As mentioned in regards to Kathleen, this pushed me to address issues of colorism in the curriculum, defining the term, interacting with texts that confront it, and allowing the girls to speak on their experiences with it.
The Venn Diagrams served as a jumping off point for further poetic
reflections on identity for the girls. In addition to reflecting on June Jordan’s poem with the Venn Diagrams, the girls also wrote poems to develop their theories about the ways they saw themselves versus the way the world saw them. Through these poems it is evident that the girls were able to critique and resist negative
perceptions. In a sophisticated poetic analysis of the ways others perceive her, Diamond wrote:
They say Im rude
They Im had a smart mouth But sure they do
They say Im was dry
They say Im was a cry baby But we all cry
They said Im take it to deep They say fight
cry they are rude but they wont amit it! So they just talk about it
(Artifact, February 9, 2016)
In very obvious ways, Diamond drew from both the thematic and structural
influences of Jordan’s poem, but she also made them distinctly her own, pulling from her personal experiences. She, like Jordan, used a repeated refrain, “They say.” She, also like Jordan, critiqued the negative discourses aimed at her. Reflecting
Diamond’s experiences of being framed by teachers as a problem student, as having an attitude, and, in her words a “smart mouth,” she explored the contradictory nature of these accusations. This poem demonstrates that she was sharply aware of the discourses that surrounded her. She departed from Jordan in her specific
critique of the ways that she is targeted with these discourses, despite the fact that those casting the aspersions might also share the very characteristics they are criticizing her for.
Diamond seems to intuit an idea that many women of color feminists,
including Patricia Hill Collins (2000), Audre Lorde (2007), and Sara Ahmed (2012), have held about the raced and gendered stereotypes leveraged against women and girls of color, particularly in academic spaces. Often, women and girls of color are targeted as being overly emotional, in particular, angry, rude, and illogical. The scholars who have addressed this issue have discussed that although it is a human and shared attribute to be angry when faced with racism or sexism or other forms of silencing, women of color are particularly targeted as being overly emotional or overly angry, their emotions being read differently than those of, for example, white
male. Diamond’s poem critiques those who label her as rude, as having a smart mouth, and as being a crybaby, without acknowledging their own emotions and tendencies to be rude, to cry, and to be “smart” as a product of those emotions. This poem is a call for self-reflexivity and the squelching of harmful practices that
mislabel, over exaggerate, and cast negative light on the emotions of Black girls. Some of the other girls followed this trend of addressing the rejection of negative perceptions. Ciara wrote a poem tracing the ways that others have labeled her. These reflect the words she entered in her Venn diagram. Rather than taking the negative perceptions cast upon her lying down, though, she made affirmative claims about herself in response.
They say that Im to fat They say that Im to dumb
They say that my fingers are long They say that Im ugly
but that does not mean A thing to me Im strong Im funny Im cute Im nice Im big I have beauty
If you don’t believe that o well. (Artifact, February 9, 2016)
Ciara acknowledged that negative opinions about her exist, but she expressed her disregard for them. She indicated it is others’ prerogative to believe what they will, but it won’t mean a thing to her. She listed affirmations about herself, using a
repetitive structure that pounds into the reader that she is so much more than what others have labeled her.
Giselle also expressed the tension between dominant narratives and self- love. In her case, she wrote her poem as advice to her audience.
Never make anyone make you feel like your nothing
You are unique, special, beautiful
Its what you think is important
Not what someone else thinks
(Artifact, February 9, 2016)
She emphasized the listener’s specialness, their uniqueness, and that this does not need to be based in the opinions of others. She conveyed the message that self- confidence is internal and important. In a stylistic move to add power to her final statement, she underlined the final word, “thinks” as if to emphasize others’ opinions are merely their own constructions and have nothing to do with the way you conceive of yourself.
Halsey engaged in yet another stylistically interesting poem, playfully writing it as a conversation, with the lines alternating between the voice of a critic and the response of their target. It reads:
“You’re ugly” I know “You’re dumb” You’re right “You’re weird” I know “You’re weak” You’re right “You’re a bxxxh”
I know
“Wait so I’m right? You’re right.
“Haha” youre right “I know” Say something”
Hi
“You’re just to scared” you’re right
“You know what” what
“Im done with this.” You’re right.
(Artifact, February 9, 2016)
In this poem, we can see Halsey spiritedly creating a scenario where someone is able to let her critics’ attacks roll off of her until she becomes exhausted. By repeatedly agreeing with the critic, the protagonist of the poem wears them down until she is done, to which the narrator proclaims “you’re right.” This poem shows the sort of “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” sort of attitude, one that indicates that the protagonist in her poem is resilient against the constant slurs she receives. It represents the constant aspersions girls can receive, and almost all that are listed are words that are more commonly used against girls—according to Halsey: ugly, dumb, weak, bxxxch, scared. Through her conversational tone, a tone also utilize by Jordan in the mentor text, Halsey demonstrated a unique perspective on how to resist negative perceptions.
Seraphina also wrote a few poems that day that contended with the misalignment of her self-perception and how others view her. Like the poems
explored in earlier sections of this chapter, she again attended to the ways she fights against negative stereotypes in her life. However, here, her poems explicated some
of the damaging effects of dominant narratives that can result in emotional shutdown and isolation. The first read:
I think I’m fine with me now Im finally me yes im awesome Hurt my feelings
HA, I have none Ever felt alone
With friends
Disreguard them and get money You over
(Artifact, February 9, 2016)
This reflects a complicated image of how Seraphina was coming to terms with her own self-love. On the one hand, the poem speaks to Seraphina’s feeling of self- acceptance, one that, as she denotes with the word “finally,” has taken time to cultivate. She affirmed her self-confidence, noting “yes im awesome.” The “yes” in this line strikes a tone of a sort of defensiveness, where Seraphina is still fighting a battle to affirm herself to those who might doubt or even argue with her.
The poem goes down a path that indicates a guardedness to her emotional knowledge. She wrote dismissive claims about her feelings, of which here she claimed to have none, and her relationships, which she recommends be dissolved in order to obtain money. It seems, here, in an effort to tap into self- love, what I
consider a feminist practice, Seraphina rejected some knowledges that have been categorized as feminine, and thus, of less value than logic (Jaggar, 1989; Lorde,
2007; Collins, 2000). What’s more, she seemed to see currency as her main goal, rather than relationships, which could, in fact, arm her against the negative perceptions she named.
In the next text she created, she drew an image of slightly smiling lips, which are flanked by the words, “NEVER KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT” on top and
“Disreguard Males aquire currucy” below (See Figure 4.3). In this multimodal entry
Figure 4.3: Seraphina’s “Disreguard Males” multimodal text