White Women For Black Men

White Women For Black Men Biography

"What becomes of the colored girl? The muses of song, poetry and art do not woo and exalt her. She has inspired no novels. Those who write...seldom think of this dark-skinned girl who is persistently breaking through the petty tyrannies of cast into the light of recognition."
"The Colored Girl" by Fannie Barrier Williams
In the above quote, Fannie Barrier Williams pays homage to the Black woman, who, despite the absence of her vision in critical race discourse authored by Black men, and despite the stifling of her distinct legacy when Black community history is memorialized, still forges a path for her own recognition, on terms that do not require traditions sacred to whiteness or maleness. The violation of Black community through her body has been overlooked as a central disruption of Black American community identity.
In Black Theology, her absence rendered the conversation stagnant, at best; at worst, Black Theology, without her, became an addendum to white theology in it's patriarchal, traditionalist (even when revolutionary) construction. The emergence of Black Womanist Ethics and a Black Womanist Theology presents possibilities for rewriting Black community Christianity in a way that speaks to the complexities, sensibilities and uniqueness of Black male and female experiences.
Using autobiography to undergird the creation of an ethics for Black community modeled by Black women, I would like to consider the advantages of autobiography viz. three sub-genres of Black women's self-stories: My intention is to consider the methods Black women have used in constructing a woman-centered, Black community-based, theological model, and to then insert the autobiographical tradition adapted by Black American women. According to Temma Kaplan, "Often in the most oppressive situations, it is the memories of mothers handed down through the daughters that keeps a community together. The mother tongue is not just the words or even the array of cultural symbols available to a people to resist its tormentors. The mother tongue is the oral tradition." (Braxton, 5) In African American tradition, it is the story of oppression as handed down by mothers, that can further inform the way we devise models, advocate doctrines, develop ideologies and adapt philosophies to govern Black life.

White Women For Black Men