Black Feminists Debate Essay, Research Paper

Black Feminists Debate Whiteness

Stephanie Philipovich & Angela Torchia

Passage #1:

“Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play.”(Morris, pg. 7)

Passage #2:

here is teh hous it is green and white it has a red door it is very prety hrere is the family mother father *censored* andjane live in the green and white hous they’s are very happy see jane she gots a red dress she wants too play.

(Both passages based on the passages found in the opening of The Bluest Eye.)

Passage taken from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

“After we left Mr. Willie Williams’ Do Drop Inn, the last stop before whitefolksville, we had to cross the pond and adventure the railroad tracks. We were explorers walking without weapons into man-eating animals’ territory.

In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites looked like. Other than that they were different, to be dreaded, and in that dread was included the hostility of the powerless against the powerful, the poor against the rich, the worker against the worked for the ragged against the well dressed.

I remember never believing that whites were really real? Whitefolks couldn’t be people because their feet were too small, their skin too white and see-throughy, and they didn’t walk on the balls of their feet the way people did- they walked on their heels like horses.

People were those who lived on my side of town. I didn’t like them all, or, in fact any of them very much, but they were people. These others, the strange pale creatures that lived in their alien unlife, weren’t considered folks. They were whitefolks” (Angelou, pg. 24-25)

“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.”