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Indiana State University

Colored Girls: Textbook for the Eighties


Author(s): Sandra Hollin Flowers
Source: Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Summer, 1981), pp. 51-54
Published by: St. Louis University
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COLORED GIRLS: TEXTBOOK FOR THE EIGHTIES
SANDRA HOLLIN FLOWERS
There are as many ways of looking at Ntozake Shange's
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide! When the
Rainbow Is Enuf as there are hues in a rainbow. One can
take it as an initiation piece, for instance, particularly with
its heavily symbolic "Graduation Nite" and the girlhood
perspectives of the mama's little baby/ Sally Walker segment
and in the voice of the eight-year-old narrator of "Tous-
saint." Colored Girls also might be seen as a black feminist
statement in that it offers a black woman's perspective on
issues made prominent by the women's movement. Still
another approach is to view it as a literary coming-of-age of
black womanhood in the form of a series of testimonies
which, in Shange's words, "explore the realities of seven
different kinds of women."'" Indeed, the choreopoem is so
rich that it lends itself to multiple interpretations which vary
according to one's perspective and experiences.
I would suggest, however, that the least appropriate
responses are those exemplified by reviewers who said that
black men will find themselves portrayed in Colored Girls
"as brutal con men and amorous double-dealers";2 or that
"The thematic emphasis is constantly directed at the stupid
crudity and downright brutality of [black] men."3 Com-
ments such as these are particularly misleading because they
appear in reviews which contain generous praise for Colored
Girls, thus suggesting that it is the condemnation of black
men, which gives the book its merit. Too, such comments
have the effect of diminishing the work to nothing more than
a diatribe against black men, when, quite the contrary,
Shange demonstrates a compassionate vision of black
men compassionate because though the work is not with-
out anger, it has a certain integrity which could not exist if
the author lacked a perceptive understanding of the crisis
between black men and women.
And there is definitely a crisis. Individually we have
known this for some time, and lately black women as well as
black men are showing growing concern about the steady
deterioration of their relationships.4 Black literature, how-
ever, has lagged somewhat behind. The works which usually
comprise Afro-American literature curricula and become
part of general reading materials, for instance, show the
position of the black man in America; but generally we see
the black woman only peripherally as the protagonist's
lover, wife, mother, or in some other supporting (or detract-
ing) role. Certainly black women can identify with the pre-
dicament of black men. Black women can identify, for
example, with the problems articulated in Ellison's Invisible
Man because they share the same predicaments. But for
black women the predicament of the black male protagonist
is compounded by concerns which affect them on yet
another level. This, then, is what makes Colored Girls an
important work which ranks with Ellison's Invisible Man,
Wright's Native Son, and the handful of other black
classics-it is an artistically successful female perspective on
a long-standing issue among black people. If, however,
black men fail to acknowledge the significance of Colored
Girls, if they resent it or insist that is does not speak to their
concerns or is not important because it deals with "women's
issues," then the crisis is more severe than any thought it to
be.
Colored Girls is certainly woman's art but it is also black
art, or Third World art, as Shange probably would prefer to
have it designated. Its language and dialect, its geography,
its music, and the numerous allusions to Third World per-
sonalities make it an intensely cultural work. Much of these
characteristics, however, are peculiar to Shange's upbring-
ing, education, and experiences, with the result that the
piece loses universality at points, as in the poem "Now I
Love Somebody More Than" (pp. 11-13). But even here,
black audiences are sure to know which lady loved garde-
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nias; they will know the Flamingoes and Archie Shepp and
Imamu. Then there is the poem "Sechita" (pp. 23-25) in
which the dancer is linked to Nefertiti, hence to Africa and
Olduvai Gorge, the "cradle of civilization"-all of which
puts into perspective the cheapening of Sechita by the carni-
val audience. While "Sechita" speaks to the degradation of
black womanhood, "Toussaint" (p. 25-30) speaks of the
black woman's discovery of black pride. It also speaks, with
subtle irony, of the black woman's awakening to the black
man.
Even "Latent Rapists' " (pp. 17-21) and "Abortion Cycle
#1 " (pp. 22-23), which seem to deal exclusively with women's
issues, are of political significance to black men. It is difficult
to politicize rape among black women, for instance, because
the feminist approach began with a strongly anti-male senti-
ment, whereas the black community is highly male-identi-
fied. Furthermore, blacks have their own historical perspec-
tive on rape-the thousands of black men who were
lynched for "rape" of white women. The history of these
persecutions, however, does not remove the black woman's
need for a political consciousness about rape, such as the
traditionally feminist one Shange articulates. By the same
token, Shange has sensitively portrayed the trauma of abor-
tion, a trauma which, to some extent, probably exists in
every case, no matter how strongly a woman might advocate
the right to choose abortion. Still, the black movement's
rhetoric linking birth control to genocide cannot be lightly
dismissed. These considerations ought to make clear the
delicate balance between blackness and womanhood which
Shange manages to strike in Colored Girls. Maintaining this
balance is no easy task, and the black woman writer of some
political consciousness is under tremendous pressure not to
sacrifice issues of blackness to those of womanhood and vice
versa.
As suggested, however, the primary focus of Colored
Girls is on the quality of relationships between black women
and their men. This focus dominates the last half of the
work, beginning with "One" (pp. 31-35), in which loneliness
is seen to be more powerful than sensuality. This loneliness-
sensuality juxtaposition is an especially effective way of
raising the issue of woman as a strictly sexual being rather
than a person with the full range of human emotions and
needs. Before we even know where the poem is headed, we
have an instinctive understanding of why this woman
"wanted to be unforgettable," why "she wanted to be a
memory/a wound to every man/arragant [sic] enough to
want her" (p. 32). Now in the prime of her sensuality and
physical attractiveness, this woman is
. . . the wrath
of women in windows
fingering shades/ol lace curtains
camoflagin despair &
stretchmarks. (p. 32)
At the end of the poem, though,
we see that all
along
the
woman has known that sensuality
at its
worst,
which is what
it has been reduced to in her case, is merely
a
surrogate
for
mutual caring and understanding. It is only a matter of
time,
she seems to know, until she will become one of those
loveless women in the windows, camouflaging her own de-
spair and stretch marks. And notice that Shange equates
despair and stretch marks: they are one and the same in the
game played by the woman in "One."
This, however, is but one kind of despair. A more overt
kind is evident in "A Nite with Beau Willie Brown" (pp.
55-60), in which Shange skillfully weaves craft and theme in
a poem about a young couple who have been lovers for nine
years. As the narrative begins, Beau Willie and his woman
Crystal are separated because Crystal, frightened by his
erratic, brutal behavior toward her and their children, has
gotten a court order barring Beau Willie from their apart-
ment. Angry and indignant about Crystal's refusal to see
him, Beau Willie forces his way into the apartment, coaxes
the children to him and, dissatisfied with Crystal's response
to his demands that she marry him, drops the children from
the fifth story window.
The foregoing summary leaves out much that is revealed
about Beau Willie during the narrative. He is, first of all, a
Vietnam veteran experiencing a typical maladjustment
upon coming back to the States. His situation is worsened
by the fact that he is one of the thousands of black veterans
who have their own horror stories of the front-line expe-
rience in Vietnam. Beau Willie is drug-dependent, shell-
shocked, psychotic, disoriented, and paranoid:
he'd see the spotlights in the alleyways downstairs movin
in the air/cross his wall over his face/& get under the
covers & wait for an all clear or till he cd hear traffic
again. (p. 55)
Yet, "there waznt nothin wrong with him/he kept tellin
crystal . . ." (p. 55). We can also deduce from the narrative
that before he went to Vietnam, Beau had almost certainly
been victimized by racism in the schools he attended "he
cdnt read wortha damn." When he returned home and tried
to attend school on the GI Bill, "they kept right on puttin
him in remedial classes . . . so beau cused the teachers of
holdin him back & got himself a gypsy cab to drive. .." (p.
56). His cab was always breaking down, though; he couldn't
make much money, was robbed of what little he did make,
and was frequently harassed by the police.
The pattern is obvious: Beau Willie Brown is the quintes-
sential black man of his generation. By this, I do not mean,
nor does Shange intend to imply, that Beau Willie Brown is
all there is to black manhood. Conversely, I am not suggest-
ing that the political realities embodied in Beau Williejustify
his treatment of or his attitude toward Crystal. Instead, I
believe that Shange's compassion for black men surfaces
most noticeably in this poem and that her characterization
of Beau Willie recognizes some of the external factors which
influence relationships between black men and women.
Twenty-five years ago, Beau Willie could have been a black
Korean War veteran; thirty years ago, he might have been
one of the black Tuskegee pilots who flew combat missions
in World War II but were denied jobs as commercial airline
pilots while their white counterparts were hired; sixty years
ago he easily could have been one of World War I's black
veterans who returned home to lynchings rather than
heroes' welcomes.
This poem is purely political, although it has been misun-
derstood by critics.5 Here, we are again talking about a
question of perspective, specifically an artist's perspective
which can transform a passing incident into a poem of
far-reaching and chilling significance. On the writing of "A
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Nite with Beau Willie Brown," Shange, who was staying in a
Harlem boarding house when she wrote the poem, says
It was hot. I was broke. I didn't have enough money for a
subway token. I was miserable. The man in the next room
was beating up his old lady. It went on for hours and
hours. She was screaming. He was laughing. Everytime
he hit her I would think, yeah, man, well that had already
happened to me. So I sat down and wrote "Beau Willie."
All my anger came out.6
One might assume that the anger is directed toward Beau
Willie, the surrogate for the woman-beating neighbor,
because of Shange's use of comic similes "like he waz an ol
frozen bundle of chicken.. ." (p. 55), or "beau sat straight up
in the bed/wrapped up in the sheets lookin like john the
baptist or a huge baby with stubble & nuts. . . " (p. 56). The
comic elements, however, are so grotesque that Beau
emerges as a tragic figure and it becomes apparent that
Shange's anger is in response to the circumstances and
impulses whatever they are-which result in men brutaliz-
ing women. Consequently, while our sympathies might at
first be entirely with Crystal, we ultimately come to under-
stand that her pain is also Beau's and vice versa.
Finally, the significance of Beau Willie's and Crystal's
children must not be overlooked. Their names Naomi
Kenya and Kwame Beau Willie are important, for both
contain elements of the African and the Western, the mis-
cegenation which resulted in the Afro-American. Further,
the girl and boy can be seen as nascent black womanhood
and manhood. Literally and metaphorically, then, in drop-
ping the children, Beau Willie is not only committing
murder and since they are his offspring suicide; but he is
also killing the hope of black manhood and womanhood.
Similarly, in "Pyramid" (pp. 39-42) three friends are
pursued by one man. Two of them become involved with
him but he rejects them both for yet another woman. If for
no other reason than the fact that black women outnumber
black men (by over 700,000, according to 1977 census data7),
it is probable that most black women will be part of some
kind of multiple love relationship, with or without their
knowledge and cooperation. Shange's concept of a pyramid
for portraying this circumstance offers a graphic illustration
of how women function in such relationships. Like the
women in this poem, clusters of women form a pyramid
from which a man can select partners. The women's position
on the pyramid shifts: they find themselves at the bottom
occasionally, but they usually have some time at the top, as
do the two friends in the poem. Seen in this way, as a simple
reflection of reality, the man in Shange's "Pyramid" is not as
heartless as the poem may suggest; he is merely exercising a
prerogative which black women and circumstances have
given him.
This particular pyramid, however, is made up of close
friends, which makes the man's actions seem more callous.
But theoretically, they are all sisters. therefore, whether or
not they are friends with the other women in the pyramid,
the man's playing them off against each other is potentially
humiliating and painful for each, as the women in "Pyra-
mid" find out. In theory, then, they should feel as much
compassion for the discarded women in their own pyramids
as they feel for the freinds in Shange's poem when, at the
end, the woman who was first rejected comforts her friend
who has also been rejected:
she held her head on her lap
the lap of her sisters soakin up tears
each understandin how much love stood between them
how much love between them
love between them
love like sisters. (p. 42)
But there is a great deal of ambivalence in these lines, just as
there is in black women's relationships with each other. On
the one hand, we might say that the sisterly love which
previously existed between these women has been restored
by the pain the man has given them. This interpretation
would be in keeping with the upbeat ending of Colored Girls
in which the women affirm themselves and each other.
However, this idealistic interpretation is undermined by the
incident of the rose. The first woman, in a mute gesture of
love, leaves a rose by the man's pillow; she later finds this
rose on her friend's desk. Betrayed by both her lover and her
friend, it is no wonder that the poor woman is speechless as
her friend tells her
. . . i dont wanna hurt you
but you know i need someone now
& you know
how wonderful he is. (p. 41)
One should note the irony and delicacy of language with
which Shange has rendered the pain women inflict upon
each other in the name of love. The love that stands between
the two women is not necessarily love for one another, but
their respective love for the man who has hurt them both.
The "love between them," then, is a destructive presence
which divides them. They cannot be like sisters again until
they reexamine their priorities and find the true importance
of themselves and of each other. This is precisely what they
proceed to do in the following sequence of poems, those
entitled "No More Love Poems."
Here, of course, Shange is being ironic, because what she
calls "No More Love Poems" is actually love poetry of the
most explicit and poignant kind. Each poem exposes the
persona so completely that one understands that she is
basically defenseless and vulnerable as far as love is con-
cerned. More important, in being so open, each woman
takes an awesome risk: If her lover has a misguided notion
of manhood, his response to her admissions may be terribly
painful for her because he will not be able to drop the poses
his self-image requires and allow himself to be equally open
and vulnerable with her. The pathos of this group of poems
is probably most evident in "No More Love Poems #2."
Here the lady in purple, who, piteously, used to "linger in
non-english speakin arms so there waz no possibility of
understandin" (p. 43) represents the epitome of the loveless
love affair. Her inability to understand anything said by the
person of the "non-english speakin arms" is symbolic of
woman's attempts to understand man. He does not speak
her language which is to say that he is unable to express the
kinds of feelings that she is capable of putting into words. At
the same time, he lacks the ability to understand her and so
she can never hope to make clear to him the things that are
important to her.
While it may seem ridiculous that the lady in purple would
deliberately involve herself with someone she knows cannot
understand her, this is precisely what happens in every
relationship in which communication is absent. In our na-
ivete, we might once have entered relationships under the
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assumption that we and our lovers would somehow know
what each of us wanted and needed. That, after all, is
supposed to be the nature of love: it does not lend itself to
scrutiny and questioning and explication; it simply exists. In
a less complex society or one in which love is of minimal
importance to the success of a relationship, perhaps this is
true. But here in the fragmented, abrasive universe of Amer-
ica, where intimate relationships are nearly the only outlet
for expressing affection and caring; where the partnership or
the family unit might be all to which one can really be said to
belong; where, in short, one depends upon one's loved one
for emotional sustenance-in such a climate, it becomes
imperative for black women and men to articulate their
needs and expectations of one another.
Black men and women have not communicated success-
fully. It might even be said that they have tried everything
imaginable to avoid articulating their needs-extended fam-
ilies, promiscuity, no-strings-attached fatherhood, getting/
staying high together, even the Black Power Movement in
which black people were all sisters and brothers, which
meant that everyone naturally had everyone else's welfare at
heart and so there was no need to explain anything. Like the
lady in purple, many black women find themselves saying, "i
dont know any more tricks/i am really colored and really
sad sometimes . . ." (p. 44).
Shange has given us an exquisite and very personal view
of the politics of black womanhood and black male-female
relationships. Too few black writers are doing that-
perhaps because the truth is really as painful as that depicted
in Colored Girls, and in telling it one opens oneself to
charges of dividing the race and exposing blacks to ridicule
by reinforcing stereotypes. That allegation has been levied
against Colored Girls, which is unfortunate because the only
thing of which Ntozake Shange is guilty is a sincere, elo-
quent rendering of what she has come to understand about
black love relationships. Critics cannot afford to insist that
black writers forgo expressing such visions simply because
they are painful, embarrassing, or potentially divisive. If
that is true, maybe it is because blacks have been so preoccu-
pied with political and economic survival that they no longer
know, if they ever did, how to confront their own responsi-
bility for what happens between black men and women; in
that case, blacks really do have a great need for Colored
Girls and similar works.
"A Nite with Beau Willie Brown" seems particularly
suitable for putting the problems of blacks into perspective.
We know that there was a period in their relationship when
Crystal wanted very much to be Beau Willie's wife. She was
asking for a commitment, an affirmation of their relation-
ship, which is precisely what the women in "Sorry," in "No
More Love Poems," in "One" in real life, in fact-are
asking. Beau Willie, like the black men on whom he was
modeled, had consistently told Crystal, "nothin doin."
Finally, when Beau Willie wanted Crystal, needed her, in
fact, to affirm himself, he found, but did not understand,
that she had had to turn from him to ensure her own
survival.
NOTES
'Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/
When the Rainbow Is Enuf (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,
1977), p. xii. All references are to this edition and are given parenthetically
in the text.
2T. E. Kalem, "He Done Her Wrong," rev. of For Colored Girls Who
Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange,
Time, 14 June 1976, p. 74.
3Harold Clurman, rev. of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide! When the Rainbow Is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange, The Nation,
17 May 1976, p. 542.
4What amounts to a small movement has developed in response to this
crisis-college courses on the black family, a periodical called Black Male/
Female Relationships, nationwide workshops and discussion groups, and
numerous articles in journals. See Diane Weathers et al., "A New Black
Struggle," Newsweek, 27 August 1979, pp. 58-60. Additionally, Alice
Walker explores the black male-female crisis in her novel The Third Life of
Copeland Grange (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970) and
Michele Wallance analyzes the crisis in political perspective in Black
Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (New York: Dial Press, 1979).
5Clurman, in describing Tarzana Beverly's Broadway rendition of "A
Nite with Beau Willie Brown," calls the poem a "tragically violent story
about her good lover" (emphasis added). Kalem refers to the poem as "a
crude tale of love and blood lust."
6"Trying to Be Nice," rev. of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide! When the Rainbow Is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange, Time, 19 July
1976, pp. 44-45.
7Weathers et al., p. 58.
AFRICA AND THE WEST:
THE CHALLENGE OF AFRICAN HUMANISM
The Humanities College of The Ohio State University is pleased to announce a major conference on "Africa and the
West: The Challenge of African Humanism" to be held in Columbus, Ohio, during late May 1982. At a time when Africa
is becoming an increasingly important factor in world trade and foreign policy, it is necessary for Americans and others
to obtain a better understanding of the world views, philosophical assumptions, and cultural backgrounds upon which
African societies are based. Because chronic problems of underdevelopment, a colonial legacy, and inexperienced
leadership have sometimes obscured the contribution which Africa can make to the contemporary Western world, the
focus of the conference will be upon the nature of this contribution. Papers and suggestions for seminar or workshop
presentations are invited, and they may be in any relevant field-politics, economics, journalism, publishing, religion,
literature, history, the arts, music, philosophy, folklore, anthropology, etc. Papers on specific topics, such as the socio-
political problems of Southern Africa or the relationship between Africans and blacks in the diaspora, as well as
interdisciplinary, comparative studies, are particularly welcome. All inquiries and proposals for papers should be sent by
September 30, 1981, to Professor Isaac Mowoe, Department of Black Studies, The Ohio State University, 486 University
Hall, 230 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210 or to Professor Richard Bjornson, Division of Comparative Studies,
The Ohio State University, 334 Dulles Hall, 230 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210.
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