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September, 1977 - New National BL.ACK MONITOR
A BLACK GIRL’S SONG: “A RIGHTEOUS GOSPEL”
A Fantasy World
The kind of womanhood which Sechita
represents is, in Shange’s perception, to be
found in some degree in every woman...
as in every man.. .in our present day. She
represents a mythologizing and a glorifica
tion of the past, together with a pathetic
attempt to imitate what never was. There is
thus in Sechita a hope for something good
which is built upon the dust of disillusion
ment.
Sechita is a side show, missing out on the
real thing. Sechita cannot truly give of her
self, since those about her have no capacity
to joyously receive but only crassly... and
disinterestedly.. .to use.
Ms. Shange has her “lady in purple” in
“for colored girls...” read this back
ground for Sechita’s coming on stage:
"once there were quadroon balls/ele
gance in st. louis/laced
mulattoes/gamblin down the missis
sippi/to memphis/new
Orleans n okra crepes near the bayou/
where the poor white trash
would sing/moanin/strange/liquid
tones/thru the swamps/”
Acting, While Others Speak
Here the “lady in green” enters. She is
Sechita who, for the rest of this reading,
dances out Sechita’s life as the “lady in
purple” continues to tell Sechita’s story:
‘‘sechita had heard these things/she
moved
as if she’d known them/the silver n
high-toned laughin/
the violins n marble floors/sechita
pushed the clingin
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Original cast (numbered, left to right) in a scene from ‘for colored girls who have
considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf”: 1) Aku Kadogo, 2) Paula Moss, 3) Rise
Collins, 4) Janet League, 5) Ntozake Shange, 6) Trazana Beverley.
Page 8
delta dust wit painted toes/the patch
work tent was
poka-dotted/stale lights snatched at the
shadows /creole
carnival was play in natchez in ten
minutes/her splendid
red garters/gin-stained n itchy on her
thigh/blk-diamond
stockings darned wit yellow threads/an
ol starched taffeta
can-can fell abundantly orange/from her
waist round the
splinterin chair/sechita/egyptian/god
dess of creativity/
2nd millenium/threw her heavy hair in a
coil over her neck/
sechita/goddess/the recordin of history/
spread crimson oil
on her cheeks/waxed her eyebrows/n
unconsciously slugged
the last hard whiskey in the glass/the
broken mirror she
used to decorate her face/made her
forehead tilt backwards/
her cheeks appear sunken/her sassy chin
only larg enuf/
to keep her full lower lip/from growin
into her neck/sechita/
had learned to make allowances for the
distortions/
... here in natchez/god seemed to be
wipin his feet in her face/
... sechita‘s legs slashed furiously thru
the cracker nite/d gold
pieces hittin the makeshift stage/her
thighs/they were aimin
coins tween her thighs/sechita/egypt/
goddess/harmony/kicked
furiously thru the nite/catchin stars
tween her toes. ”
Here Sechita, the “lady in green,” exits.
It is significant that Sechita does not even
speak for herself. She is what other persons,
other circumstances, other forces, other
imaginations have decreed that she should
be. But Sechita, in and through her acqui
escence, kicks viciously and reaches inces
santly for what seem to be life’s stars.
Come io lhe 7th Annual Bkuh Caucus Dinner on September 24, 1977
“Let Her Be Born”
In meeting Ms. Shange, one is impressed
with an apparently indomitable and driving
will for reality, for finding life in its fullest
and most rewarding sense. This is imme
diately evident in her book and Broadway
play. The play is built around dancing; and
in the reading of the book version of the
play, the exuberant sense of release and the
life-opening ecstasy afforded by the dance
are clearly felt.
Ms. Shange explains that it was the dance
which opened up her womanhood and so
enabled her poetry of womanhood to come
to flower. She discovered that her poems
had a rhythmic quality to which the dance
gave deeper expression. Her poems there
after were coupled with dancing.
Ms. Shange writes of the dance as a kind
of birth experience: “With dance 1 dis
covered my body more intimately than 1 had
imagined possible.” Dance was the affir
mation of a hidden self: “Dance insisted
that.. .everything half colloquial, a gri
mace, a strut, an arched back over a yawn,
(were) mine.” In this way, so Shange notes,
she moved her unconscious knowledge of
“being in a colored woman’s body” to her
“known every dayness.”
For Shange “being in a colored woman’s
body” expresses her particular nature, as a
uniquely created person.
“Dark Phrases of Womanhood”
The play and book begin with Shange’s
character, “the lady in brown,” speaking
of the illusive and chaotic “pre-birth” (or
fetal-like and only partially awakened) con
ditioned in which “colored girls” (that is,
the lives of all of us) exist.
The “lady in brown” speaks:
‘‘dark phrases of womanhood
of never havin been a girl
half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
distraught laughter fallin
over a black girl’s shoulder
it’s funny /it’s hysterical
the melody-less-ness of her dance
don’t tell nobody don’t tell a soul
she’s dancin on beer cans & shingles. ”
Then the play announces, through the
words of the “lady in brown,” the univer
sal hope—expressed most acutely and
sensitively in today’s womanhood —of
being born. Here what may be called
Shange’s theological outlook is seen to re
flect a groping after “birth itself” rather
than after a “re-birth.” To Ms. Shange,
the entrance into reality is birth; it is a life
long process, in terms of its fullest realiza
tion. Even so, the birth experience can
come as life’s greatest gift only to those
who are willing to>be born.
For those who want to be born, the
“lady in brown” cries out:
‘‘sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
(Continued from page 6.)
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin /struggle/hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so 10ng...
she’s half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
sing her sighs...
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
the makin of a melody
let her be born
let her be born
and handled warmly. ”
The Rapist Mentality
“A rapist is always to be a stranger.” So
the “lady in red” announces as she carries
forward the poet’s theme.
Here Ms. Shange speaks of the “user
mentality” of our age which helps to keep
all of us unrealized and half-born. In this
sense, a rapist’s seeds are never fathered to i
maturity, his plantings never come to their
fullest flower. In our presently de-person
alized world, persons, and most especially
women, are dealt with characteristically as
things.
It may be said that we have moved —es-
pecially in the European dominated world’s
recent history—from exploration to exploi
tation. But in either case, there has been a
continuous colonializing of others; there
has been an appropriation (for the benefit
of some) of that which has not been their
own. There has been no mutuality of choice
or reciprocity in our relations.
Philosophically this taking without an
exchange of benefits is to ravish. Legally
this is to rape. Practically—or in every day
language—it is to ruin, to mishandle, to
abuse. Psychologically it is a reflection of
what the “lady in red” speaks of as our
“obvious problems.”
"a rapist is always to be a stranger
Io be legitimate
someone you never saw
a man wit obvious problems. ”
We hear several of the voices of woman
hood hold forth upon this pervasive or
widespread condition of our present day.
The “lady in red”:
"women relinquish all personal rights
in the presence of a man
who apparently cd be considered a
rapist...
...it turns out the nature of rape has
changed... ”
The “lady in blue”:
"we can now meet (those who rape) in
circles we frequent
for companionship. ”
The “lady in red”:
(Continued on next page.)