When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost

by Joan Morgan

  One day the bird did not return from its daily outing. Concerned, the king followed the long leash. He traveled past the beautiful castle and the lush forest for a very long time, until the landscape became quite parched and unattractive. In the midst of this, however, he heard a bird singing the most melodious song he’d ever heard. He looked up, and to his utter amazement there was his bird sitting on a scrawny, gnarled, and leafless twig just as joyous and beautiful as she could be.

  And it was on that old ugly twig that the bird found its happiness and lived blissfully ever after.

  “Oh, by the way,” she added casually. “Don’t worry about the claustrophobia. It tends to go hand in hand with this type of thing.”

  I’d learned a long time ago that “How did you know?” was a silly question to ask of a woman who had regular chats with gods and spirits. Instead, I just sighed. “What do you think I should do about it?”

  “Well,” she said. “I think you better go find yourself that twig.”

  So one day, in a moment between the airport in Frisco and the flight back to New York, I decided my life—my ability to breathe, let alone write—depended on me leaving New York as quickly as possible. I would spend the winter in San Francisco.

  In Frisco I did a few wonderful things. I fell apart regularly in the arms of two deliciously brown men (one a lover, both friends) who faithfully administered the regular doses of TLC I needed to breathe again— unafraid of my tears or fragility. I wrote. Spent lots of time near the water. Heard Oshun’s laughter twinkling like bells, urging me to recapture the feminine and discover the fierceness of a black girl’s magic. I did and had what I now know to be a powerfully feminist time. Back then though, I was just saving my life.

  Perhaps nothing could have saved me from becoming a SBW. Certainly there was a wealth of Women’s Studies courses, and an abundance of my foremothers— Michele Wallace, Paula Giddings, and bell hooks, to name a few—scholarly research that tried. In fact, the ultimate anti-SBW manifesto, Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, was displayed prominently in my study for years. Even though I considered the book a bible for generations of black girls raised to believe the only appropriate response to adversity is to flex like Harriet Tubman, I still managed not to get it. Much to my detriment, I ignored her incisive warning: “For every woman like Harriet Tubman there were twenty who died in childbirth, went mad, or became old by the time they were thirty. The existence of a Harriet Tubman only meant that some unusually talented women had emerged despite a vicious and cruel system of human devastation.”1

  Perhaps the image of my mother at my age, with blood clotting in her lungs, trying desperately to immerse herself in an activity as normal as plaiting her hair before she was rushed off to the hospital, is too viscerally implanted in my childhood memory. Perhaps it’s the thought of her pushing my tiny hands away as I made attempts to help her. Perhaps it’s because I can’t remember my mother ever being afraid unless something threatened her children’s well-being.

  I am sure it is because I am a black girl and we are a people ruled by Myth. It was once the way we made sense of our world—how we explained the birthing and dying of things and everything that came between. But all of that changed once we were stolen. Myth became white folks’ way of making sense of us and the perversions of their institutions. According to their Myth slavery was an act of benevolence bestowed on ungodly savages and primitives. And to those who knew and cared little about us or our prior histories, we became Mammies, Pickaninnies, and Sambos (creatures too simple to survive without a master’s guidance), or oversexed, criminal, dangerous Niggers. The latter, of course, possessing a nature that justified every act of barbarism it took to keep them in line.

  This was the Myth of the New Place. It was repeated like a mantra whenever the dying breath of black boys fertilized poplar trees; whenever whips set fire to the backs of women carrying seeds unwanted.

  It was in this dangerous climate of myth-making that the war to shape black women’s identity was waged. We’ve been fighting it ever since. Their Myth vs. ours. The problem is we’ve been fighting so long we sometimes forget which Myth belonged to whom.

  So here’s a reminder about the original SBW. The STRONGBLACKWOMAN was born in the antebellum South. She had a white step-sister named SOUTHERNBELLE. Now the effects of revisionist history being what they are, the two are now permanently estranged, but they were once so close their existences depended on each other. Both sisters were the bastard children of racism, sexism, and the white male Myth-makers need for absolute dominance.

  The antebellum South was a lousy place to be a woman—black or white. White women fared better than their shackled (and for that matter unshackled) counterparts but their lot still left much to be desired. The price for that mint-julep-sipping-lady-of-leisure status was high. The image of the evil, domineering plantation mistress looms so dominantly in our minds we forget the SB had to surrender all authority to her husband. Giddings breaks it down in Where and When I Enter.

  White Southern women found themselves enmeshed in an interracial web in which wives, children, and slaves were all expected to obey the patriarchal head of the household. The compliance of White women became inextricably linked to that of the slaves. It was believed that “any tendency of one member of the system to assert themselves against the master threatened the whole.” It was often asserted by slavery apologists that any change in the role of women or blacks would contribute to [the] downfall of not only slavery but the family and society as well.2

  Since white men also believed white women were too fragile for thoughts beyond beauty and motherhood, the SOUTHERNBELLE was considered too “virtuous” and “pure” to be sullied with anything as nasty as independent sexual desire. So her myth-making husband assigned her a figurative chastity belt to which he had the only key. She was expected, however, to turn a blind eye to his illicit sexual liaisons with her darker step-sister. It was understood that satisfying her husband’s baser needs was not in her nature—that filthy task was best left to black women whose “hot-blooded” constitutions rendered them STRONG enough to take it. So while the SB was “hoisted on a pedestal so high that she was beyond the sensual reach of her own husband, Black women were consigned to the other end of the scale, as mistresses, whores and breeders.”3

  With both racism and sexism pushing it along, the myth that black women were stronger than white women and nastier to boot, permeated the social climate—from the good ol’ homestead to Ivy League colleges. Harvard today has one of the most distinguished African-American Studies departments around, but check out Giddings’s analysis of Philip A. Bruce’s thesis, which was published in 1889.

  [Black women] were “morally obtuse” and “openly licentious,” he wrote. But because they were women, their regression was seen as much worse than that of men. For it was women who were “responsible” for molding the institution of marriage and a wholesome family life, which was the “safeguard against promiscuity.” In Bruce’s eyes, Black women who saw no “immorality in doing what nature prompts,” who did not “foster charity” among their own daughters were not only responsible for their own denigration but for that of the entire race. Even the Black man’s alleged impulse to rape was the Black woman’s fault. Historically, the stereotype of the sexually potent Black male was largely based on that of the promiscuous Black female. He would have to be potent, the thinking went, to satisfy such hot-natured women. . . .4

  Before long the black woman’s mythic “strength” became a convenient justification for every atrocity committed on her. It was the Myth-makers rationale, for rape and breeding (and by extension, the lynching of black men)—acts, interestingly enough, that no civilized white man would dream of doing to the STRONGBLACKWOMAN’s exalted step-sister, Miss SOUTHERNBELLE.

  “Every tenet of the mythology about [the black woman] was used to reinforce the spinelessness and unreliability of the black man, as well as the frivolity and vulnerability of the whit
e woman,” explains Wallace. “It was at this point that the black woman gained her reputation for invulnerability. She was key to the labor supply. No one wished to admit that she felt as any woman might about the losses of her children, or that she had any particular attachment to her husband, since he might also have to be sold. . . . She was believed to be not only emotionally callous but physically invulnerable—stronger than [any] white woman and the physical equal of any man of her race. She was stronger than white women in order to justify her performing a kind of labor most white women were now presumed to be incapable of. She was labeled sexually promiscuous because it was imperative that her womb supply the labor force. . . .”5

  Still, the question remains, if the original STRONGBLACKWOMAN was really the creation of some fucked-up slave owners, why do contemporary SBWs flaunt the identity like a badge of honor? The answers lie in the complex amalgamation of myths that still surround black female identity. Some of them are unquestionably the racist creations of white folks. Quite a few of them were given to us by our brothers. The rest we gave ourselves.

  Wallace catalogs the stereotypes: Sapphire. Mammy. Workhorse. . . . Always had more opportunities than the black man because she was no threat to the white man so he made it easier for her. Frequently ends up on welfare . . . more educated and makes more money than the black man . . . provides the main support for the family. Not beautiful rather hard looking unless she has white blood, but then very beautiful. The black ones are exotic though, great in bed, tigers. And very fertile . . . She is unsupporting of black men, domineering, castrating. She tends to wear the pants around her house. Very strong . . . tough, unfeminine. Opposed to women’s rights movements . . . considers herself already liberated . . . definitely not a dreamer, rigid, inflexible, uncompassionate . . .6

  Add the following nineties manifestations to Wallace’s mix: Ghetto Bitch. Project Ho. Welfare Queen. Goldigger. Skeezer. Babymother. Hoochie Mama. Chickenhead. Ball-buster. Too independent. Don’t need no man. Waiting to Exhale. Earth. Nubian Queen. The ultimate mother. Selfless and all-sacrificing. Gets up every time she’s knocked down. Claire Huxtable—Mother of five. Shenequa—a decade younger than Claire and Mother of six. Loud as hell. Silent and suffering. Not whiny, like a white girl. Paid, paid, paid. Poor, poor, poor.

  “From this intricate web of mythology which surrounds the black woman a fundamental image emerges,” concludes Wallace. “It is of a woman of inordinate strength, with an ability for tolerating an unusual amount of misery and heavy distasteful work. This woman does not have the same fears, weaknesses, and insecurities as other women, but believes herself to be and is, in fact, stronger emotionally than most men. Less of a woman in that she is the embodiment of Mother Earth, the quintessential mother with infinite sexual, life-giving, and nurturing reserves. In other words she is a Superwoman.”7

  The original SBW and her alleged “super strength” was a myth created by whites to rationalize their brutality. The contemporary SBW, however, is our internalization of this mythology. Superhuman strength was the salvageable shred of dignity remaining after sexism and racism ravaged our images. In turn, we fabricated an identity out of it. Becoming SBWs was the emotional inoculation needed to protect us from the Myth-makers’ lies.

  There are inherent dangers, however, in building an identity based on the prejudices of one’s oppressor. Eventually the line between Myth and Mortality becomes dangerously, irreversibly blurred.

  Hip-hop’s fallen heroes provide a haunting example. The music’s greatest gift and its heaviest burden is its legacy of urban mythology. Hip-hop will always be remembered as that bittersweet moment when young black men captured the ears of America and defined themselves on their own terms. Regenerating themselves as seemingly invincible bass gods, gangsta griots, and rhythm warriors, they turned a defiant middle finger to a history that racistly ignored or misrepresented them.

  And we loved them for it. Selfishly we chose to ignore the dangers of rappers believing their own myths. Instead of reminding them of their mortality, we demanded that they come harder, phatter, and deffer. Sensing our worship was conditional they donned ghetto realness and wore it like armor. Inevitably, we all suffered the consequences. Eazy-E’s untimely death from AIDS and Tupac’s and Biggie’s senseless murders painfully reminded us of our heroes’ mortality. At the end of the day we were left with what we’d always known: Young black men are not invincible—they get shot, go to jail, and die all the time.

  The harrowing tale of Dianna Green, the sista whose suicide was plastered over the front page of The Wall Street Journal, is yet another example. As the senior VP at Duquesne Light Co. and a major Pittsburgh power broker, Green, in the words of Essence magazine, was the type of sista we all “looked up to, admired, and tried to learn from.” She was “the role model who made the old folks proud and inspired the young ones. The well-connected sister we all want to meet” who “chairs our committees and leads our fund-raising efforts.” Green was “the matriarch, the giver who is always out and about, helping, saving, nurturing, protecting, mentoring, loving, encouraging, leading— making sure everybody else’s back is covered but her own.”

  Green, it seems was a STRONGBLACKWOMAN if there ever was one. And in true SBW fashion, she camouflaged her personal pain. Diabetes was causing her eyesight to fail. Her mother and brother died within months of each other. And after years of service to Duquesne, she was fired after the utility company discovered she’d allegedly lied about receiving an MBA on her résumé. Tragically, Green sought the only relief she knew. “Hours after the company issued a polite memo to employees announcing her departure, the superwoman was dead.”8 With a Bible by her side, Green ended her misery with a .22 caliber gun and a single shot to the head.

  Green’s story brings to light a dichotomy that SBWs grapple with daily. There’s no question that the myth of the STRONGBLACKWOMAN empowers us in many ways. When you’re raised to believe that the ability to kick adversity’s ass is a birthright—a by-product of gender and melanin—you tend to tackle life’s afflictions tenaciously. This is a useful quality, no doubt. However, this myth also tricks many of us into believing we can carry the weight of the world.

  Truth be told there is much to indicate otherwise. Black women are more likely to die from cancer, AIDS, heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney failure, and domestic violence than white women—who outlive us by an average of six years. Between 1986 and 1991, the number of black women in state prisons on drug-related charges alone soared a staggering 828 percent—making us the fastest-growing group in the prison system.9 Only 56 percent of us are employed full-time (vs. 60 percent of black men). Black-on-black marriages are down to 38 percent. Forty-six percent of us are raising families alone and many of us in poverty —the average income for black women is a paltry $11,956.10 Black women are not impervious to pain. We’re simply adept at surviving.

  The problem for SBW is telling the difference.

  Daily Meditation for SBWs in Recovery

  For some reason, we believe struggle is noble. We think it brings us special rewards or that the God force is pleased with us when we struggle. Struggling people have so much to say about the things they are struggling with that they hardly have time to get anything done. Struggling people know how to struggle well. They know what to wear, where to go, and how to behave in a way that will create struggle. Struggling people impose conditions, restrictions, and expectations upon themselves, because it is easier to struggle doing nothing than it is to bring up and use the creative force within. Struggling people love to sacrifice in the name of struggle. They sacrifice themselves, their families and if you are not careful, they will sacrifice you.

  God does not ask us to struggle. What we are told is, “Come up to Me all ye that labor and I will give ye rest”

   —Iyanla Vanzant, Acts of Faith

  Any SBW that doubts her affinity for struggle needs to look no further than the standard list of black female icons. “The Widows”—
Coretta Scott King, Myrlie Evers, Dr. Betty Shabazz—usually head the list, followed by Harriet Tubman and Billie Holiday. It wasn’t until the tragic passing and postmortem praises of Dr. Shabazz that many black folks even realized that her life’s accomplishments encompassed more than marrying “Our Shining Black Prince” and surviving the brutality of his murder. Her commitment to education, activism, and family would have made her passing just as tragic a loss for our community if Malcolm had lived to a ripe old age, or if the two had never met at all.

  I wonder, though, if we would have paid the same degree of attention. If we woulda granted her the status of heroine if Sista Betty had lived a charmed life, no friendlier with struggle than the rest of us. Because unlike contemporary black male heroes— Colin Powell, Michael Jordan, or Jesse Jackson—being talented, famous, wealthy, and powerful has never quite been enough to clinch black heroine status. Eternal public suffering is a non-negotiable prerequisite.

  Recognition for their laudable strengths duly noted, black women’s icons rarely have lives any of us would want to live—not really. While little black boys grow up hoping one day to “Be Like Mike” we pray our daughters will never know the darkest depths of depression and substance abuse or the pain of losing men they love to senseless violence. What we hope for daughters and ourselves is if faced with the same degree of adversity as our sheroes we’ll emulate their strengths. We remember, on the days we feel like laying down and dying, the list of their accomplishments against ridiculous odds. But do we want be them? No. ’Cuz their existences were simply too damn hard.

  Too hard. Even as I write the words that unrepentant SBW voice tells me I’m committing some sort of sacrilege. That there’s something wrong with saying I want to grow up and be like, I don’t know, Oprah, ’cuz the sista went through some shit but she’s rich and powerful, smart, spiritually balanced, and above all else, pretty damned happy with her life. Demanding the same sort of privilege afforded white folks and black men—specifically, icons whose lives we’d actually want to live—still feels like an inappropriate desire for women Zora Neale Hurston once described “as the mules of the world.”