an empire state....that thing

Cooper's novel unveils complexities of urban space

Kerry Washington stars as Olivia Pope

Today Callie and Dushane presented their spoken word presentations. Dushane recast "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys and Callie recast Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)." Again, another set of impressive performances. The students are truly understanding the complexities of urban life when race is part of the equation. 

In today's discussion, we also took up the issue of class and gender by looking at black female laundry workers in postbellum Atlanta as presented in a monograph by historian Tera Hunter. We juxtaposed those women's experiences against the migrating working class women of color under surveillance in northern cities during the interwar period as presented by historian Hazel Carby. 

In an effort to help the students see the degree  to which African American women in both narratives had "self-determined" spirits no matter the level of their oppression, I encouraged them to turn to Olivia Pope, a character in a modern day television drama's "Scandal" (I did as much because I earlier saw some of them enthusiastic about this show). A lively conversation ensued, so much so Callie set up a Group Me app and we will all watch tomorrow's episode separately and continue talking about the specific experiences of African American women who, as Carby explains, created a "moral panic" for both whites and the black elite after migrating north. Jake noted how the iconic "Miss Anne," or white women who spent time in Harlem among African American artists and musicians, created panic, too. It will be interesting to see what new things we will learn about such panic and about the urban space via Pope. 

We will  continue discussing such issues next week while turning to an excerpt from J. California Cooper's Some People, Some Other Place, an imagined work unveiling a woman who could easily be one of the women Carby is describing. Eula Too has recently arrived in a Chicago suburban home as a new migrant from the South. She finds an unlikely friend and employer. We will also turn to Reynolds Farley's essay on the urbanization of "the Negro" in the United States as another avenue to continue thinking about how urban life was increasingly defined by the black body. We will also read Allan Spear's essay on how white racism affected residential patterns in 20th century Chicago. Farley and Spear's writings will set the stage for how we, among other things, consider the "tone" of historical scholarship on black urban life and how it came to be that Chicago is often front and center when we look at academic work on African American "urban" experiences.