Reading With A Social Justice Lens

As we engage in conversations about the power of language to oppress and empower, it seemed fitting to bring in Keno evol, a local spoken word artist, poet, activist, and social justice educator.  Keno is a Washburn alum and an extremely talented and passionate educator.  This is my third year collaborating Keno, and I've found that I've learned so much from his work and teaching practice.

For this workshop, Keno guided students to draw connections between Their Eyes Were Watching God and any current social justice issue.  It was not challenging for students to come up with a social justice issue- these last weeks have been flooded with tragedy- globally and locally.  Inspired by the advice that Janie, the novel's protagonist, receives from townsfolk, Keno prompted the students to write a piece of advice for some party involved in the social justice issue.  Here's what students came up with:

"No means no." And, "Yes means yes."

"Turning a blind eye to an issue makes you part of the problem."

"People aren't afraid of angry words; they are afraid of change."

To the protesters in North Minneapolis:
 "Be intentional, be smart, go to the source."

Many pieces of advice were concerned with developing awareness:
"Be educated about groups of people; don't stereotype."

"Don't paint a group of people with the same brush."

From these lines of advice, questions emerged.  How do we communicate with each other?  Which communities are we prioritizing?  Why?  How do we show solidarity?  How do we stay informed?  How do we develop insight around the context of news media?  What does news media leave out?  What does it include?  Why?  To whose benefit?

Applying a social justice lens to Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God leads students to conversations about the argument for safety in exchange for freedom.  Students also analyzed the impact of trauma, in this case, sexual violence, across three generations of African American women. What does this pattern convey about social relationships?  About resilience?  About power and privilege?  About survival?

At the time of publication, Hurston's novel was not considered a "political" or social justice text.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, she was criticized by other authors for what they believed was a lack of urgency about the injustices that African Americans faced.  Through Keno's workshop, students learned to read critically between the lines.  Slavery's scars are present in the novel, just not always overt.  Unlike Richard Wright's characters, Janie (and Janie's narrator) lead the reader along a path that is ultimately Janie's.  Her journey is not fully predetermined due to society (though it is surely influenced) because she never loses hope.  In this way, I see Their Eyes Were Watching God novel as political.  To be political doesn't mean a work has to be angry, it can be controversial in that it reveals a unique direction or future.  Keno told the class, "The poem at its best is a snapshot of a situation.  It doesn't need to have an answer."  I agree with him, and I think Hurston would too.

Ruminating on Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God

It's been quite some time since my last post.  It's now quarter 2, almost Thanksgiving, and we are cruising.  As my students continue to analyze the relationship between language, identity, and culture, we have shifted from Latino/Chicano/Caribbean writers to focusing on African American writers, primarily Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God.  This is probably the third time I've read the book cover to cover, but the first time I've actually gotten to teach it.  Three years ago, I planned a unit but passed it off to a long-term sub as I headed into maternity leave.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is not the easiest book to read.  The primary challenge is the dialogue, written in southern black dialect as heard in the 1930s.  The use of dialect was (is) a controversial choice as African American writers like Richard Wright critiqued Hurston for what he believed to be stereotypical representations of African American southerners.  He felt the last thing America needed was to read about uneducated, poorly spoken black folk.  Of course, there is another side to the story.  Hurston, a highly educated and established anthropologist, viewed the southern black dialect as rich and articulate, a deeply embedded component of the culture.  Rooted in an anthropological lens, Hurston didn't view language, or, for that matter, culture, as a hierarchy. 

By approaching There Eyes Were Watching God from this context, my hope is that students will have more patience as they work through the dialogue, sounding out the dialect (it is written phonetically) and beginning to notice patterns in the grammar and pronunciation.  I've found that after a few chapters, students begin to recognize words and the reading gets easier.  Then, we can really start to appreciate the poetry of Hurston's eloquent prose, ruminating on humanity, existence, time, and love.

Here are some of my favorites:
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

"She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop."

"She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up.  it was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making."

"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.  Dawn and doom was in the branches."

My students love these lines.  (I mean, how can you not?)  These lines linger on the mysteries of the universe while also acknowledging the individual's need for hope amid the endless search for answers. Class discussions pick up right where Hurston left off.  One student quoted her grandmother, "Love is never enough." Another said, "We are more than who we are with."  And another, "Never give up an opportunity to find love."

I, for one, am grateful that Alice Walker pulled Hurston out of obscurity. Hurston's worldview remains unique- from Eatonville Florida to Barnard College to the streets of Harlem to the voodoo culture of Jamaica and Haiti.  Her writing is a reflection of her passion for deeply rooted cultural communities and the personal journey of the individual.  Further, I am grateful that perhaps a young girl saw (sees) herself in Janie, and perhaps, because she read books, she knew "she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop."