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GETTING OFF OF BLACK WOMEN'S BACKS: Love Her or Leave Her Alone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2007

Marcyliena Morgan  and
Dionne Bennett
Marcyliena Morgan
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Stanford University
Dionne Bennett
Affiliation:
Department of African American Studies, Loyola Marymount University
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Extract

In Finding Oprah's Roots (2007), featuring Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s search for answers to questions about Black genealogy, Gates explains that one of Oprah's grandfathers stopped his formal schooling at an early age to work on a plantation so that he could help provide an education and opportunity for his sister instead. The grandfather did this in an attempt to protect his sister so that she could escape rape and other forms of gender oppression from both White men and women. Gates's explanation reflects both the way that gender, sexuality, and race defined life in the old South and their consequences for Black life, Black relationships, and Black destinies. This personal sacrifice, in defense of Black women, was commonplace—not at all particular to Oprah Winfrey's family. In fact, John Gwaltney collected several essays of Black men and women describing similar actions in his book Drylongso (1981).

Type
STATE OF THE DISCOURSE SYMPOSIUM: THE UNIQUE SITUATION OF BLACK WOMEN
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , September 2006 , pp. 485 - 502
Copyright
© 2006 W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research

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