#see when you do niggerish things

[whoredan-alvarez]

Baker fans: omg all Baker does is dance and people hate him like I don’t understand why he gets treated this way!!!

Cam Newton, Odell Beckham, and Jalen Ramsey:

[clarz]

spoon

       for Don Belton Who sits like this on the kitchen floor at two in the morning turning over and over the small silent body in his hands with his eyes closed fingering the ornate tendrils of ivy cast delicately into the spoon that came home with me eight months ago from a potluck next door during which the birthday boy so lush on smoke and drink and cake made like a baby and slept on the floor with his thumb in his mouth until he stumbled through my garden to my house the next morning where I was frying up stove top sweet potato biscuits, and making himself at home as was his way, after sampling one of my bricks told me I could add some baking powder to his and could I put on some coffee and turn up the Nina Simone and rub, maybe, his feet, which I did, the baking powder, stirring it in, and I like to think, unlikely though it is, those were the finest biscuits Don ever ate, for there was organic coconut oil and syrup bought from a hollering man at the market who wears a rainbow cap and dances to disguise his sorrow, and it might be a ridiculous wish, but the sweet potatoes came from a colony just beyond my back door, smothering with their vines the grass and doing their part to make my yard look ragged and wild to untrained eyes, the kale and chard so rampant some stalks unbeknownst drooped into the straw mulch and the cherry tomatoes shone like ornaments on a drunken Christmas tree and the blackberry vines gnawed through their rusty half-ass trellis, this in Indiana where I am really not from, where, for years, Negroes weren’t even allowed entry, and where the rest stop graffiti might confirm the endurance of such sentiments, and when I worried about this to Don on a cool September evening, worried it might look... Don in his kindness abundant and floral, knowing my anxiety before I stated it, having been around, having gone antiquing in Martinsville a few weeks back and been addressed most unkindly by a passing truck or two, trucks likely adorned with the stars and bars, knowing the typhoons race makes our minds do, twirling with one hand a dreadlock and patting my back with the other asked, smiling sadly and knowingly, niggerish? before saying, it looks beautiful, and returning to some rumination on the garden boy of his dreams, whose shorts were very short, and stomach taut and oily enough to see his reflection in. Don told me this as we walked arm in arm through our small neighborhood, which he asked me if he could do, is this ok, he asked, knowing mostly how dense and sharp the dumb fear of mostly straight boys can be---oh Don--- walking arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, his hand almost patting my forearm, resting there, down the small alley next to the graveyard, fall beginning to shudder into the leaves, and Don once dreamt he was in that graveyard next to his house on 4th, where in real life we sang Diana Ross’s “Missing You” while decorating his kitchen, where I once asked to borrow a signed Jamaica Kincaid novel at which Don made one sound by sucking his teeth that indicated I was both impossibly stupid and a little bit cute and in the dream in the graveyard where century-old oak trees look like giants trudging into a stiff wind, and some gravestones are old enough to be illegible and lean back as though consulting the sun, Don was floating into the air which, pleasant at first, became terrifying, he told me, beginning to cry, just a little, as the world beneath him grew smaller and smaller, his house becoming a toy, the trees’ huge limbs like the arms, now, of small people, calling him down, but he couldn’t stop going higher, he said, crying, just a little, and I have inserted myself two or three times into the dream, imagining a rope cinched to his waist by which Don might be tethered to this world, snatching it as it whips uncoiling through the grass at my feet, and gripping it with all my strength until it almost hauls me up and takes the skin of my palms with it, twisting slowly into the sky at which I become like the trees here on earth shouting Come back, come back and running some blocks looking into the sky, first down 4th, but as the wind sends him this way and that I too veer through backyards, hopping a fence or two, not wanting to take my eyes from him, not wanting to lose him, as he sails in and out of the low clouds, looking down with his sad eyes, just as he did when he said at breakfast I’m a survivor, I survived, this 53-year-old gay black man, to which we did a little dance listing the myriad bullets he’d dodged, swirling the biscuits in their oily syrup, Don occasionally poking his fork into the air for emphasis, laughing and sipping coffee and shaking our heads like we couldn’t believe it, and having survived Don wanted a child to love, and we made plans that I might make the baby with my sweetie and he could be the real dad, reading and cooking and worrying, while I played in the garden and my sweetheart made the dough, which maybe would have worked, though Don never once cleaned a dish, and when I told him to put his goddamned plate in the sink, he writhed in his seat and called me bitch before plopping it in, returning to his Destiny’s Child tune about survival, while he scooped and slurped the remaining batter with this spoon in my hands, into which I stare, seeing none of this. I swore when I got into this poem I would convert this sorrow into some kind of honey with the little musics I can sometimes make with these scribbled artifacts of our desolation. I can’t even make a metaphor of my reflection upside down and barely visible in the spoon. I wish one single thing made sense. To which I say: Oh get over yourself. That’s not the point. After Don was murdered I dreamt of him, hugging him and saying you have to go now, fixing his scarf and pulling his wool overcoat snug, weeping and tugging down his furry Russian cap to protect his ears, kissing his eyes and cheeks again and again, you have to go, cinching his coat tight by the lapels, for which Don peered at me again with those sad eyes, or through me, or into me, the way my dead do sometimes, looking straight into their homes, which hopefully have flowers in a vase on a big wooden table, and a comfortable chair or two, and huge windows through which light pours to wash clean and make a touch less awful what forever otherwise will hurt. ---Ross Gay

[adaralondon]

Their Eyes Were Watching God: A masterpiece underappreciated in American Literary culture.

From the start of her childhood, Janie’s life was full of issues.  Raised by her grandmother (referred to as Nanny in the book) from birth, she never knew her parents and the little parental influence she did have was authoritarian. While the authoritarian parenting style may[JC1]  make it easier to control the children, there are many psychological issues that start to develop as the child [JC2] grows up because “they do not focus on meeting the child's existential and emotional needs [and] are more concerned about the child living up to their adult standards, norm abiding ideas, consensus values, and expectations.” (Positive Parenting Alley). By using this parenting style alone, Nanny restricts Janie’s ability to find out who she really is, affecting self-esteem and self-confidence hence why she only seeks men who appeal to her need for a parental figure or are authoritative by nature. In the novel Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie’s problems stem from the way she was raised and how she is viewed by the people around her (Greater than them because she is half white).

According to Erik Erikson − who along with Freud theorizes that are stages important[JC3]  to a child’s development− Janie is in the stage [JC4] where anything from here[JC5]  will contribute to how she sees herself for the rest of her life, particularly her budding interest in the sexuality of humans. These are the essential ‘Who am I? What is going on with my body/feelings?’ questions all children must answer for themselves. Janie attempts to figure out who she is through pleasure, in the form of masturbation (under the pear tree) and physical contact with her peers.[JC6]  “On a late afternoon Nanny had called her to come inside the house because she had spied Janie letting Johnny Taylor kiss her over the gate post.” (Hurston 36). Psychologically speaking children begin an in-depth exploration of their bodies and other’s around them between the ages of 10- 16, so her actions are not entirely out of the way. However, Janie’s grandmother refuses to acknowledge her granddaughter’s need to grow out of this stage (As all children do) and forces her to marry a middle age man as a sixteen-year-old girl. Maslow’s hierarchy of need states that a person cannot move to the next level without fulfilling the bottom tiers first, and Janie is never allowed to have her sense of self (the level she would be trying to fulfill as a 16year old girl) because of her grandmother’s fear[JC7] .  This notion forever halts Janie’s development because she never gets the opportunity leave this stage on her own but is rather forced out of it. In the end, it is her Achilles heel, as she loses everything.

Janie, in addition to being sexually inept, is also continuously confused about her role in society. Nanny seems to have accepted her role as someone who will never escape the economical chains placed on black people and black women in particular: “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world. “(Hurston 39). However, Janie, who does not know where she fits in, is not content with her grandmother’s submission. Being a mixed child who lived in the ‘White folks’ backyard she was better than other children but at the same[JC8]  time subjected often to many prejudices. This more than likely further confuses her on where she fits in, she thinks [JC9] often to herself: “Am I better than them or Am I one of them?’ When she marries Logan, the middle age man, she is unhappy because he takes away the freedom she has known as a lighter skinned woman by making her do all the hard laboring (what poor dark skin woman would be doing during this time). It is as he sees Janie as a tool to manipulate, a slave to his whim, which is why she runs off with another man.

Janie’s behavior as a young woman is not inherited, it is learned. Since Janie cannot be with her parents or complete the stages of development that she missed (without a proper trigger at least), she seeks out fulfillment to an infinite continuum. By doing this she herself fails to realize that A.) these things are unobtainable − you can never receive your parents love from someone else− and forever seeking them will cause her to remain insecure/codependent.  B.) that when she finds a person that can indulge her needs she will quickly lose interest because they have lost the attractiveness of re-experiencing her childhood trauma. “We unconsciously behave in a way that will allow us to ‘play out’ [Repressed Memories/trauma], without admitting it ourselves, our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress.” (Tyson 12-13). A great explanation as to why she cannot balance herself in society and why she sees herself in such a low light enough for her only haven is being controlled by a man.

Fed up with being controlled, Janie leaves Logan for a man named Joe. He bates [JC10] her with sweet talk quickly making her believe he is in love with her, just as she has always wanted someone to be [JC11] “You ain’t got no business behind uh plow as a hog is got wid uh holiday!” [JC12] (Hurston 52).  “Janie, if you think Ah aims to tole you off and make a dog outta you, youse wrong. Ah wants to make a wife outta you.” To Janie this is her taste of freedom, however, she is skeptical because Logan is a man who has authority over her. However, being raised by an authoritarian grandparent, Janie associates authority with safety, which why she is skeptical about leaving her safety net, Logan, for a mysterious man who offers her the same freedom as Johnny Taylor did so long ago.

Janie does indeed go off with him, unable to deal with Logan need to control her anymore and begins to feel contentment in the life she lives. Joe establishes a small town that he becomes the mayor of and Janie as his wife, lives the ‘high life’.  However, this attraction is short lived because just like Logan, Joe seeks only control her. He isolates her socially and physically, slowly taking away the freedom she thought she had gained by leaving Logan. He prevents her from talking to the townspeople (because he is jealous, and they are too poor to even associate with her), makes her work in the store, and does not allow her to show her beautiful hair to others. To Janie, her hair is one of her most important features, her pride. It is long and straight, symbolizing the freedom she once had at the Pear Tree in her youth. As time flows on with Joe beginning to become emotionally abusive, Janie is still unable to leave him because of her learned helplessness, but she does begin to speak out against him. As she notices he is dying, she no longer feels compelled to live by his rules. Joe’s death is the gear that finally restarts Janie’s cog, she is able to restart the process of becoming herself. So when Joe dies, she lets her hair down for the first time in twenty years.

Joe’s death, however, causes more harm than good for Janie. Men start to pour like rain, making their interest in her clear from the jump. But rather than being attracted to her as a person, they’re attracted to her whiteness, her long straight beautiful hair. Janie does not share this sentiment and is content in her loneliness because in her loneliness she is free to do whatever she wants, free from the harsh critiques of men, free from just being known as the mayor’s wife instead of just being Janie. However, just like everything her life, her freedom is short lived.

Teacake is the last of Janie’s suitors and the last piece to the puzzle before Janie feels as if she’s truly found herself. He also is young and misguided fulfilling her need for a man who is lost just like her. Although Janie is happy with Tea cake[JC13] , the townspeople are not. They feel as if their light-skinned, long-haired, and rich mayor’s widow should not be associating with someone so poor[JC14] . “Dat long legged Tea cake ain’t got doodly squat. He ain’t got no business makin’ himself familiar wid nobody lak you” (Hurston 116). This is the first explicit instance of classism in the novel. The other instances are hidden amongst the African American community viewing and accepting that will never be any better than the white men and left at that.

The classism has always been there in fact, as Janie realizes that from the time she was a little girl that she was ‘better’ than other Black’s her age because of her mixed-race heritage. She also realizes that she holds a much higher social standing than everyone in Eatonville because she is the mayor’s wife. Even when Joe dies Janie is still beheld as the town’s treasure. The townspeople become disgusted that Janie is attracted to someone who’s obviously below her, someone so “niggerish”.  However, Tea cake makes Janie happy in a way that she has never felt before. He teaches her to play checkers (a man’s game), takes her fishing at night, and closes shop with her, which allows her to feel on equal terms to a man for the first time in her life. He buys her gifts and picks out a color, blue, for her to wear. Teacake reminds Janie of her kiss with Johnny Taylor, of what she wanted her life to be. “Ah done lived grandma’s way, now ah means tuh live mine” (Hurston 126). Tea cake is Janie’s first and last taste of freedom.

As we reach the final chapters of the book. Tea cake proves himself to be no better than Joe or Logan. Although he does not see her as an object, as a partner who is equal to him in terms and stature, he is still manipulative. He steals Janie’s money, lies to her, and even beats, her something neither of her husbands have ever done. He fulfills her sexual desires (her first to ever do so), but he is jealous and possessive just as Joe. He is also reckless, something Janie confuses with rebellious. This kills him in the end as he refuses to leave a town destined to be swept away by a hurricane and is bitten by a stray dog who gives him rabies[JC15] . Ironically as Janie seeks freedom while she is with him, she is the one who chooses to free him by making the choice to end his life. This shows that Janie has finally developed her own sense of self and no longer needs to rely on finding missing pieces through the men who come into her mouth. She did not have to choose to shoot Teacake when becomes infected with rabies and instead could have allowed herself to be killed by him. This shows Janie’s growth as her choices may have varied from the time when she had first met him. Her choice to shoot him proves that she is finally okay with herself, with being alone, with being just Janie.

Their Eyes were Watching God shows the journey of a black woman who seeks to find herself in all the wrong places. It shows her transition from insecurity to being satisfied with who she is at that moment in time. The book is profound in its writing style and overall theme as it can even be[JC16]  compared to The Awakening written by Kate Chpoin. However, the book is not critically acclaimed and has even been banned in United States Schools and curriculum. Perhaps this was because Zora Neal Hurston was a black woman, or because it was because the African American’s in the book were portrayed as rich, or maybe it was because a woman explored her sexuality without constraint. Unfortunately, no one knows the reason why her works were not praised, however, I am hoping that by reading this academic paper others will realize that Their Eyes Were Watching God is more complex than a novel just about a woman exploring her sexuality in physical terms. I hope that readers will soon realize that this novel is about a black woman who embraces her struggles the only way she knows how and that she is the product of her environment. However, she refuses to let it define her and searches for her true meaning/love in life. As some oppose and continuously fight for this novel to remain on the banned book, one aspect opposers fail to realize is that this book portrays a deeper meaning than what the average reader may see, a simple story portraying a black promiscuous woman.

1.      African American critique: Why did The Great Gatsby earn more prestige than TEWWG? They are written in the same literary time. Is it because TEWWG focuses on a prosperous African American town in the south as an opposed to Rich white American man forcing himself on a married woman in New York City?

Works cited:

“Strict Authoritarian Parenting: Long-Term Psychological Effects.” Positive Parenting Ally, www.positive-parenting-ally.com/authoritarian-parenting.html.

“Psychological Effects of Poverty.” The Borgen Project, 8 Jan. 2018, borgenproject.org/psychological-effects-poverty/.