Womanist Musings
the Black Woman Changed - Nikki Giovanni
In this in-depth conversation between two world renown thinkers, Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, we hear a lot of bold statements. For starters, Giovanni claims that the Black woman has significantly changed over time - moreso than Black men.
Baldwin listens as she theorizes that Black men smile in the faces of everyone else during the day, but come home with all their frowns and their anger. This phenomenon, of being kind to everyone except one's own family and intimate partners, is not new nor is unique. But her assertion that the "integrity" of being "truthful" is something that she doesn't need.
Giovanni indicates she needs partnership without the harshness and raw anger to which others are never exposed. Black women are uniquely taking on the anger and rage of our communities - even with other Black women. (See bell hooks) For Giovanni, this is not acceptable.
The shift she identifies is a relational shift between Black women and men. Yet, there are other relational shifts that are central for Black women today.
What Giovanni is essentially talking about is boundaries. When people who feel close to us assault us with viscious tones, demeaning assumptions and anger which appears to burst out of nowhere - we deserve better. For Giovanni, it's Black men and women - both are shackled by the struggles to survive during the day. And, both deserve to come home to a different type of integrity.
We are no longer satisfied with an integrity where one reflects upon their anger and then lashes his partner with it. Rather, the desired integrity requires the energy to provide someone with your best at night - just as you give your best (kindness, gentleness, smiles) during the day.
The boundary Giovanni identifies is one of gentleness, kindness. She tells Baldwin, "You lie to the 'cracker' all day and smile in his face. Lie to me, too."
Baldwin protests, "But I can't." Yet, Giovanni insists, "But you must." In other words, the person he identifies as his "enemy" is the one for which he saves his best behavior. The one he smiles at believes that he is fine - that everything is okay.
Giovanni appears to be interested, not in falsity but, moreso, interested in boundaries. These boundaries, where someone does not presume to erupt with sudden outbursts of temper or biting cuts to demean, they are important to us all.
Setting boundaries with allies, colleagues and others who presume they can speak to you in inappropriate manners, and you will simply absorb it, are over. The first or second reader to your article / book who maligns you as a substandard scholar, only believes it to be true when you proceed with the project, unchecked, and allow the insult to sit unchallenged.
Yes, Giovanni is right. The Black woman has changed. Her demands, her boundaries, will be respected.
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