Discovering African American Culture through African American

85 Pages·2007·0.37 MB·English

MASARYK UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature

Discovering African American Culture through
African American Literature
Thesis

Brno 2005

Supervisor: Written by:
PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph. D. Magdaléna Hájková
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the teachers of the English Department at the Faculty of
Education who have influenced my opinions about foreign language teaching and
teaching itself.

My grateful thanks belong to PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D. for her kind help,
comments, and valuable advice that she provided me throughout the thesis as my
supervisor.
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Declaration:
I hereby declare that I worked on the thesis on my own and that I used only the
sources mentioned in the bibliography.

I agree with this diploma thesis being deposited in the Library of the Faculty of
Eduaction at the Masaryk University and with its being made available for academic
purposes.

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CONTENT
Content ..…………………………………………………………………………. 4
1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………….... 5
2 African American English ……………………………………………………. 8
2.1 The origin of AAE …………………………………………………….. . 9
2.2 The status of AAE ………………………………………………………10
2.3 The lingustic features of AAE ………………………………………… 10
2.3.1 Speech events in AAE ……………………………………….. 11
3 History of African American literature …………………………………….. 12
3.1 Time chart ……………………………………………………………... 12
3.2 Harlem Rennaisance …………………………………………………... 18
3.2.1 Young generation ……………………………………………. 19
3.2.2 Inspiration in the South ……………………………………… 19
3.2.3 Inspiration in music ………………………………………….. 20
3.2.4 More representatives ……………………………………… ... 21
3.3 Literature after 1970 ................................................................................ 21
3.3.1 The inner diversity and problems of African American
community ................................................................................ 22
3.3.2 The search for identity .............................................................. 22
4 African American writers and their selected works ....................................... 24
4.1 Langston Hughes ....................................................................................... 25
4.2 Martin Luther King, Jr. ............................................................................. 30
4.3 Amiri Baraka ............................................................................................. 31
4.4 June Jordan ................................................................................................ 37
4.5 Toni Morrison ........................................................................................... 43
4.6 Yusef Komunyakaa ................................................................................... 47
4.7 Walter Mosley .......................................................................................... 54
4.8 Gloria Naylor ............................................................................................ 60
4.9 Rita Dove .................................................................................................. 66
4.10 Introduction to poetry ............................................................................. 72
5 Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 74
5.1 Questionnaire form ................................................................................... 74
5.2 Commentary ............................................................................................. 75
6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 78
Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 81
Appendix ................................................................................................................. 86
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1 INTRODUCTION
African American authors and artists present an important part of American culture
and literature. Their work and contribution to culture in general was being rejected and
overviewed for a long time. On account of the former slavery and racial segregation, they
were regarded as inferior and so were their thoughts and works. This has been already in
process of change, but works of African American authors can be found only in the
anthologies of American literature published after 1990; except for the most famous
publications.
Literature written in English offers a wide range of books and authors. I decided to
focus on contemporary literature, for I find it topical and interesting, and for it is usually
less presented and even less discussed in Czech schools. I chose African American
literature, because of three main reasons. Firstly, I personnaly like it. Secondly, African
Americans underwent an immense social change in history and they are likely to reflect
this in the literature. Books written by African Americans provide a special kind of
experience that cannot be granted by literature in Europe or in other continents. Finally,
in a few past years, there has been the rise in popularity of black actors (Will Smith, Hale
Berry), black singers (Beyoncee, Jay-Z), and black music and culture in general (rap, hip
hop, r&b). This contemporary middle-stream pop industry has its largest consumers in
adolescents. The young are naturally interested in these celebrities’- their idols’ lives. As
most of the contemporary black artists come from the U. S., this pop industry could
bridge over the gap that may be perceived between Czech students and texts by African
American writers

As I passed courses of literature at the university, I created an idea of how to work
with literature in my future work as a teacher. During the teaching practice I found out
with a regret that in English classes there was usually very little space contributed to
literature in general, the contemporary one was presented rarely. As a result, the present
work is aimed to be used during summer schools, optional courses of reading, or in extra
lessons for interested students. On the other hand, with the Educational Framework
Programme comming, the content of the thesis can be incorpored into a School
Educational Plan, if the focus of school alows it.
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The objectives of the present work were therefore assigned as follows:
(cid:1) To present selected texts by nine African American writers of the second half of
the 20th century.
(cid:1) To propose how the texts can be employed in English lessons in third and fourth
years of Czech grammar schools.
(cid:1) To put emphasis on the education towards tolerance and multiculturality.

The present project is created to serve as a guideline or an aid for teaching
contemporary African American culture and literature; ideally in the third or fourth year
in ELT (English Language Teaching) in Czech grammar schools. The aim is to provide
students with texts, characters and stories, that will broaden their mind and provoke their
thinking of various social and ethnic groups and minorities. Consecutive reflexion,
discussion and argumentation are emphasised over the reading itself. The instrument, the
literature, should encourage students to see and feel the reality from many different
angles.
The present work is designed to serve as an instrument in contemporary educational
trend – education towards tolerance and multiculturality. All of the selected texts are set
in the United States. Students will discuss enthusiastic essays about “Negro identity” at
the beggining of the second half of the 20th century, study fates of unordinary black
characters during the 1970s till they reach recent history with its wide range of themes,
problems and emotions depicted in works by African Americans.

As the texts are primarily provided in English language, students are also supposed
to widen their language skills, to acquire new vocabulary, and to observe stylistically or
graphically marked texts and language structures.This developement in linguistic field is
nevertheless not stressed as crucial one, in contrary, student’s language progress should
be a natural accessory output of the literary and mental work.

The structure of the present work is divided into six main parts. The first chapter is
an introduction. The second chapter deals with a chronological overview of African
American literature. Attention is paid to possible links to synchronical events in the
politics and public life of the United States of that time. The third chapter discusses and
illustrates the role and status of African American English within the today’s United
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States. The fourth chapter is the main and the broadest part of the present work and deals
with the texts of African American writers, their analysis and suggestions for their use in
English lessons. The fifth separate chapter is dedicated to a questionnaire for secondary
school students that was constructed and administrated in order to get an idea about the
adolescent’s awareness of African American culture and literature and about their
willingness to learn more. The last chapter concludes the achieved aims and comments
the creation of the present work. Materials for furthter classroom use are included in the
Appendix.

Texts by nine African American writers of the second half of the twentieth century
will be introduced. Every text is presented in a unifying scheme: a brief presentation of
the author’s life and work, the text itself, and suggestions how to work with the material
in lessons. Each text is provided on separate sheet of paper to facilitate possible future
use in practice. The main focus is to work with texts to broaden student’s mind and
ability to reflect, think over, and contemplate about various aspects hidden in selected
works. In the consequence, not large attention is payed to the lives and life stories of
authors. On the other hand, students will be always encouraged to find out more
information if they need or desire to search for it for better understanding or widening the
knowledge.
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2 AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH
This chapter introduces attitudes towards the origin and status of African American
English (AAE). I chose Lisa J. Green’s book African American English as a main
reference book for the present part. Lisa J. Green is Assistant Professor in the
Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. Her book is clearly
organized and it is the first textbook to provide a full description of AAE as a system. Its
features will occur in the selected works and students should be therefore familiar with
the variety and ought not to confound it with slang.
I find the best way to open this chapter is to provide an example of AAE together
with its translation to Standard English. Here are opening lines of Alice Walker’s The
Color Purple (1982) with the following translation done by a class of June Jordan’s
students in one of her courses in 1985.

You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting
me know what is happening to me.
Last spring after Little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was pulling on her arm. She say
it too soon, Fonso. I aint well. Finally he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her arm
again. She say, Naw, I ain’t gonna. Can’t you see I’m already half dead, an all of the children.1

“Absolutely, one should never confide in anybody besides God. Your secrets could prove
devastating to your mother.”
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I have always been good. But now, could you help me to understand
what is happening to me?
Last spring, after my little brother, Lucious, was born, I heard my parents fighting. My father
kept pulling my mother’s arm. But she told him, “It’s too soon for sex, Alfonso. I am still not feeling
well.” Finally, my father left her alone. A week went by, and then he began bothering my mother,
again: Pulling her arm. She told him, “No, I won’t! Can’t you see I’m already exhausted from all of
these children?
(Our favourite line was “It’s too soon for sex, Alphonso.”) 2

1 June Jordan. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You” (Unidentified source. 407.)
2 June Jordan (Unidentified source. 408.)
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2.1 Origin of African American English
Crucial and determining for making an appropriate attitude to AAE should be
knowledge of its origin and evolution. Nevertheless, like in most cases, there is no
universal explanation of the roots of AAE. Green provides in her work a clear overview
of theories on the origin of AAE.1 One of the theories claims that the beginning of AAE
is dated to the period where first African slaves were brought to America, when they
were thrown into a place, people and language they did not know. In the need to
understand and to be understood, they simplified and modified the language they heard,
which was, of course, English. Another theory believes that the basis of AAE structurally
comes out of West African languages and its similarity to English is only superficial.
Other theory considers the basic role of African languages in structure and sound system
in contemporary AAE, and asssumes pidgin2, Jamaican Creole3 and Gullah4 to be basic
constituants of AAE.
In general, the theories do not interfere as it could be perceived at the first sight.
They only grade different components differently according to what they consider to be
the most influential or constituing element. All the presented views are based on research
data and to obtain them, researchers based the investigation on comparative data from
different varieties of non standard English, pidgin, Caribbean Creole, woodoo texts and
interviews with ex-slaves, as Green summarizes.5 On the other hand, it seems that the
theories do not incorporate the data from African languages. They mention the relation of
AAE with them, but one is not reassured that researchers investigated African languages
in depth for there are extremely rare notes on concrete and particular words or sounds.
Yet, as Green claims, an analysis of African languages should be done beforehand of any
other analysis if a research dealing with the origins of AAE should be considered serious.

1 Lisa J. Green. African American English. ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002). 8-9.
2 A form of speech that usually has a simplified grammar and a limited often mixed vocabulary, and is used
principally for intergroup communication. (West African pidgin, e.g.)
3 Creole is a language resulting from the acquisition by a subordinate group of the dominant group, with
phonological changes, simplified grammar and an admixture of the subordinate group’s vocabulary, and
serving as the mother tongue of its speakers.
4 The language of the Gullahs one of a group of negroes inhabiting the sea islands and coastal districts of
Southern Carolina, Georgia, and a small part of Florida.
5 Green 8.
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2.2 Status of AAE
The present status of AAE is also under investigation; approaches and attitudes
vary and so does their justification. Although there are various theories that dispute
whether AAE is slang, dialect, or language of its own, the most recent works tend to
perceive AAE as a variety of English in which the slang plays an important role. Green’s
textbook is one of them.
The exploration of linguistic aspects of AAE began in the 1960s. However, AAE
was a subject in an inquiery for sociolinguistics and a few other external sciences. The
pure linguistic studies were produced mostly from the 1980s. June Jordan was maybe the
first one to design a university course on AAE (Black English) in 1985. A vivid
discussion on AAE was raised by so called Oakland controversy.1 Nevertheless, the
resulting idea of teaching AAE as a subject next to the mainstream school English did
not find many supporters. Walter Mercer expresses one of the possible reasons for
rejection. “Regardless of the “genuineness” of the dialect, regardless of how remarkably
it may add flavor and soul to a poem or song or novel, regarless of the solidarity it may
lend to a political rally, I say, it is illogical, nonsensical, and harmful to teach an innocent
black child that it’s quite all right to say ‘I done gone to school.’”2
2.3 Linguistic features of AAE
Green underlines that AAE is governed by a system and should not be therefore
presented as a list of separate items. She proves it by exploration of AAE in all linguistic
levels. Green studied lexicons and their meaning, syntax, phonology and speech events in
AAE. Her textbook deals with the listed items in a great detail.
For the purpose of the present work, speech event patterns will be introduced here
in greater detail because they will occur in the selected texts (in written form). Besides
that, students can identify them in many r&b or hip hop songs by African American
artists currently played on radio.

1 It was claimed that the children’s first language (AAE) is so different from the school-taught mainstream
English, that it prevents them to understand in school and causes their failure.
2 Green 216.