My Sisters' VoicesAuthor: Jacob, IrisGenre: Political Science Publisher: Harper and Row Released: 2002 |
A Review by Laurie Edwards
04/02/2002
We as sisters of color encounter one experience after another in which we are forced to focus on our skin and our gender and how we feel as a result of the experience.In other words, if you're white or male, you have no place in this book...and you can't even understand what we're talking about.
Several girls of color have written stories and poems dealing with their experiences as minorities in the white world. Some are furious, some sad, others just tired. What all these works have in common (besides the theme of alienation) is a bitterness so intense I can't even begin to describe it, much less empathize with it. (I could sympathize, perhaps, with some of the girls and their situations, but it's made clear over and over again that my sympathy isn't wanted and won't be accepted.)
Ms. Jacob introduces each writer with a short semi-bio and a description of how the story/poem to follow relates in some way to her own experiences. Reading these blurbs is the most understanding we get of the author herself; she remains a rather shadowy figure, cheerleading a team of disaffected young women who seem (for the most part) to have given up on assimilation ("Why should we lose what little African pride we have left so that we can all be one?" writes fifteen-year-old Vanna Shaw) and on white society in general.
This is not to say, however, that all these girls believe the same things. Their views, like their races, span a wide spectrum; in one essay, a girl defiantly promotes Ebonics as representative of her culture, while in another the writer pushes education as the way out of the horrors of her ghetto life. Particularly puzzling (and somehow offensive) is the blurb about "cultural" clothing. How is it that even clothes have to be social statements?
A black friend of mine purchased a robe that had been used in a production of The King and I...I...thought of my friend's connection to African culture and wearing Kente cloth. I found what she was doing—purchasing and wearing Asian cultural clothing—very similar to white people purchasing African clothing, instruments, and so on and wearing and displaying them as if they were their own.This "Us Against Them" attitude is pervasive in My Sisters' Voices, and as a white woman who's always believed we can all work and live together as a cohesive group, I was irritated by it in nearly every essay and blurb.
Complaints about white society taking over black culture abound. Some of these complaints may be justified; I'm probably the wrong person to ask about that, thinking as I do (did) that America should be a melting pot, combining bits of all the many races who've settled here (willingly or otherwise). We get Vanna Shaw whining about whites taking over black music (Elvis, for example, drew heavily upon black rhythm 'n' blues and gospel) and the snippy phrase, "A white man steals African American music and gets paid for our work," as though Presley had nothing to do with his own success. Shaw goes on to rant about white people who don't understand her "black" slang when she first uses it and then go on to accept and use it themselves. I don't get it—Either you want to be entirely separate (so whites don't understand you) or you want to be accepted as equals...in which case, your slang will naturally become part of the general population's verbal landscape.
We're treated to plenty of Ms. Jacob's paranoia too, as she ascribes to whites feelings she thinks we have, and her racism is no more attractive than anyone else's. Several passages like this one made me grit my teeth.
When I was younger I remember people telling me I did a great job or accomplished something wonderful. I remember thinking, Do they really I did a good job or that a black girl did a good job?Clue for you, Ms. Jacob: Like everyone else of all races, most whites judge you on your merits, not on the color of your skin. Equally paranoid is her story about a teacher whose job it was to compile data on the racial makeup of her class; Jacob calls herself "angry and confused" because the teacher made it clear she (Jacob) is one of two black students in the class. She wonders why the teacher didn't also want to know about her Jewish side (nice bit of anti-Semitism there; Jewish is an ethnicity, not a race), her West Indian side, and her European side. Maybe the teacher wasn't supposed to be counting that, but in Jacob's eyes, marking her as black (something she supposedly's proud of!) is an insult.
Even sadder are those girls who protest vehemently against anti-minority racism and then exhibit it themselves. In Nzinga Moore's essay on beauty contests, she relates how a Face of Africa contestant was disqualified for having lips too large. That is a disgrace, but equally disgraceful is Moore's addition of how much too big the lips were. Would it be better if the woman's lips had been only a quarter-inch too big for regulations, rather than half-an-inch? By adding that bit, Moore unconsciously buys into the idea that smaller lips are better than larger ones.
The negative reactions to overt racism are easier to understand. Being called "Nigger" when you try out for the cheering squad begs for an immediate and forceful response. Being followed in a department store (to make sure you're not ripping the place off) would be an instant nasty attack, if it were me being followed. There are half a dozen or so of these stories that made me angry—not at the writer, but at society at large. They resonate with what I consider righteous bitterness, and I sympathize with the victims of racism. Immediately, however, up comes another tale to remind me that my white sympathy and good thoughts are neither desired nor appreciated.
One story, "Justice (for my momma)" by sixteen-year-old Tara Ashley Chaney, is the only one iwith which I wasn't forced to feel uncomfortable, like an intruder. The hellish tale of her mother's murder is told with a simplicity and honesty most of the book lacks, and it neither begs for understanding nor refuses it when it's offered. It's a horrible story told beautifully and certainly the finest work in My Sisters' Voices. I hope to read more of Ms. Chaney's work as she grows up.
One point strikes me strongly throughout My Sisters' Voices, a point that ultimately forces me to conclude that this book fails in its aims. Despite constant reminders that this book is by, about, and for minority girls, it's written and edited in the blandest of ways, the only exception being "Justice (for my momma)". There's blessed little here, besides that single story, that doesn't seem deliberate and plodding. Where's the immediacy—the sense of pent-up rage—these stories should have? It all sounds too careful, too calculated in its bitterness. I'm left, finally, with the feeling that many of the emotions expressed here are like costumes these girls are trying on; the middle-of-the-road whitebread editing job has made most of the writers less interesting and eventually indistinguishable...which invalidates utterly the point of the book, doesn't it?
Ultimately, My Sisters' Voices has done something important for me, something that doesn't bode well for me or for society: It has shown me, after all these years, how completely "other" minorities are, how foreign, how irreconcilable. Is this truly how girls of color see life, society in general, and white people in particular? Am I really this despised and feared for my milky skin tone? As I think about whether to recommend this book, I have to wonder: Do I want other whites to know this nasty truth? Do I want them to understand, through the words of young minority women, that peaceful coexistence is probably a white illusion—an illusion these writers neither share nor pretend to.
Would I have reacted differently to Iris Jacob and her work if I were a teenaged girl of color? Would I recognize myself in her collection of stories? Would her anger be mine? I can't know that answer; what I do know is that her feelings and ideas and solutions aren't mine. We hear how the truth will set you free, but I don't buy that anymore. This version of truth has chained me to a mindset I hate, and I won't recommend that other kind, well-meaning people subject themselves to it. Sorry, but most of My Sisters' Voices is hate speech wrapped up as freedom talk. Avoid it for your own sake.
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 04/02/2002
