Southern black women: Their lived realities

250 Pages·2015·0.59 MB·English

University of South Florida
Scholar Commons
Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School
1-21-2009
Southern Black Women: Their Lived Realities
Robin M. Boylorn
University of South Florida
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Boylorn, Robin M., "Southern Black Women: Their Lived Realities" (2009). Graduate Theses and
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https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1869
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Southern Black Women: Their Lived Realities

by

Robin M. Boylorn

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Communication
College of Arts and Sciences
University of South Florida

Major Professor: Carolyn Ellis, Ph.D.
Arthur Bochner, Ph.D.
Navita Cummings James, Ph.D.
Cheryl Rodriguez, Ph.D.
H. L. Goodall, Jr., Ph.D.

Date of Approval:
January 21, 2009

Keywords: African American communication, storytelling, autoethnography,
poetry, rural communities

© Copyright 2009, Robin M. Boylorn
This dissertation is dedicated to
the women who raised me

lifted me on tired shoulders
showed me the way
taught me right from wrong
and habits of survival and life

who loved me in spite of
not because of
my insecurities and inabilities and inaccuracies

To my grandmother who told me once that she was my father
and was right

To my mother for her beauty and calm waiting
and her soothing voice
that only changes when she is angry
or talking on the telephone

To my aunt who taught me to respect her
by making me call her mama
before she bore children of her own

To my other maternal aunt whose memories of my mother as a child
have bore witness to my own stubbornness
for being the first storyteller in my life

You taught me how to act
how to love
how to cuss
how to pray
how to fight
how to mend
how to breathe

You taught me
how to be myself without apology
and love what I see

Thank you.
Table of Contents

List of Characters…………………………………………………………………………iii
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv

Introduction: A Suffocating Story: The Making of an Autoethnographic Dissertation....1
“You can’t make no money being no writer!” ........................................................8
Waiting to Exhale: Leaving & Coming Back.......................................................11
Meaning-Making & Making Meaning...................................................................12
(Re)defining Rural Black Womanhood.................................................................13
Countrywomen (A Poem) ..........................................................................15
Breathing Again: Being and Becoming a Rural Black Woman............................17
Family & Friends Day (A Poem) ..............................................................20
Summary.2

Chapter One: Black Women’s Lived Experiences: A Call for a Rural Black Woman’s
Perspective………………………………………………………………..26
Introduction.26
What Is Rural?.......................................................................................................27
Black (Community) Studies...................................................................................29
Seeking the “Authentic” Negro: White Men Studying Black Men...........30
Dark Ghettos, Real Negroes & Ordinary Folk: Black Men Studying
Black Communities........................................................................32
Where Are the Women? ............................................................................34
Black Women’s Studies. .......................................................................................36
Who is the Black Woman?........................................................................38
Outsiders-Within: Black Women’s Double Jeopardy................................38
Right From the Horse’s Mouth: Black Women Studying Black
Women……………………………………..........................................39
Black Women Studying Their Communities.............................................42
Black Women’s Communication...........................................................................43
Talking in Rhythms: Black Women’s Talk...............................................43
Focusing on Black Women’s Communicative Lives.................................44
Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Black Women.....................................45
Black Feminist Thought & Womanist Theory...........................................46
Theorizing In(side) & Out(side) The Academy.........................................50
Black Women’s Experience(s)……………………….…………51
Black Women’s Epistemology………………………………….52
Black Women’s Ideology…….53
Intersectionality Theory…………...……………………………..53
i
Muted Group Theory.……….………………………………………….5
Meting at the Margins…….……………………………………………57
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….58

Chapter Two: Collecting Myself: Fieldwork, Storytelling & Autoethnography…..……59
Introduction.59
Dead-Ends & Intersections.59
Mirror Images: Rural Black Women Share Their Stories....................................61
Colecting Data.6
Conducting Interviews.69
Participant Observation.71
The Call of Stories and the Pull of Poetry.............................................................76
Transcribing Stories.79
Teling Stories.82
Writing Myself Into the Story................................................................................83
Autoethnography.83
Reflexivity.84
Ethical Dilemmas.85
Insider/Outsiders and “Outsiders Within” ................................................86
The Ethics of Dual Roles...........................................................................87
Relational Ethics.89
Mama’s Story.89
Grandma’s Story.91

Chapter Three: Where I Come From: Bitter & Sweet(water) Stories..............................96
Surviving.97
Fighting Words.15
Finding Religion.125
Revival.................................................................................................................127
Sunday..................................................................................................................132
Ray-Ray.135
Peace Be Still.......................................................................................................143
Conclusion.146

Chapter Four: “A Squadron of Conflicting Rebellions” .................................................147
Black Mother Woman (Audre Lorde) .................................................................147
woman’s talk (A Poem) ......................................................................................148
Fish Dream.151
Pus In The Blood.................................................................................................155
A (Rural) Black Girl’s Blues...............................................................................168
Life After Death...................................................................................................179
Insomnia.185

Chapter Five: Coming Full Circle...................................................................................187
More Ethical Issues..............................................................................................187
ii
External and Internal Confidentiality.......................................................188
Moving Beyond Stereotypes.189
Learning to Breathe On My Own........................................................................193
Conclusion.20
Full Circle (A Poem) ...............................................................................201
Full Circle (A Reflection) .......................................................................206

Appendix I: Poetic Biographies......................................................................................211

References........................................................................................................................225

About the Author……………………………………………………………........End Page

iii
List of Characters
Bebe pseudonym, Twiggy’s oldest daughter, Bread’s sister, Bird’s aunt
Bird pseudonym/nickname for author when she is “home” in the country, writer
and researcher who returns to rural community to conduct research for her
dissertation, Twiggy’s granddaughter, Bread’s youngest daughter
Bread pseudonym, Twiggy’s daughter and Bird and Cali’s mother, single parent,
Butter pseudonym, Bread’s best friend in childhood
Cake pseudonym, hauls pulpwood for a living, married to Twiggy
Cali pseudonym, Bread’s oldest daughter and Bird’s sister
Junior pseudonym, Twiggy’s oldest son, Bread’s brother, Bird’s uncle
Lionel pseudonym, Bread’s husband, Bird’s father
Little pseudonym, Twiggy’s youngest son, Bread’s brother, Bird’s uncle
Mae June composite character, Twiggy’s first cousin and the town gossip
1
Neesee composite character, Cake’s girlfriend
Patience composite character, rural black woman, Twiggy’s distant relative
Peaches pseudonym, Twiggy’s youngest daughter, Bread’s sister, Bird’s aunt
Twiggy: pseudonym, rural black woman, mother of five children, married to Cake,
Bird’s maternal grandmother, the matriarch of the Lately family
Uli Cali’s biological father
Whitehouse composite character, rural black woman, friend of Twiggy
2
The “Lately Family” chart below shows the main characters in relation to one another.

1
mistress
iv
SISTER WHITEHOUSE
(Family Friend)
PATIENCE
(Twiggy’s
Cousin)
LATELY FAMILY
WALTER MAE JUNE NEESEE
(Patience’s (Twiggy’s (Cake’s mistress)
Husband) Cousin)
TWIGGY CAKE

BEBE JUNIOR BREAD PEACHES LITTLE

CALI BIRD
(Researcher)

2
The main characters are contextualized further in the Appendix, through poetic biographies.

v
Southern Black Women: Their Lived Realities

Robin M. Boylorn

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the lived experiences of ten rural black women in a familial
community in central North Carolina, this project documents the mundane and
extraordinary events of their lives and how they create meaningful lives through
storytelling. Theoretically grounded in black feminist thought, intersectionality theory
and muted group theory the investigation calls for the use of storytelling and poetry to
understand how rural black women experience, live, and communicate their lives.
Merging the experiences of participants with the researcher, the study also considers the
ethical implications of being an insider-outsider and offers suggestions for engaging in
creative scholarship. The author uses a combination of various qualitative methods,
including ethnography, participant observation, interactive interviewing and
autoethnography, to better understand her experiences as a rural black woman. The
author combines archival research about the community, personal reflections, field notes
and interview transcripts, translating the data into stories about rural black women’s lives.
The study shows how the stories rural black women share, the secrets they hold, and the
activities of their daily lives offer a window for understanding concrete lived experiences
as communication experiences.

vi
Introduction:

A Suffocating Story: The Making of an Autoethnographic Dissertation

brown-skinned
country girl
with poetic passions
bare feet on red mud roots
& intellectual ambitions
Holding my breath was a kind of rehearsed rebellion. Strange, black, beedy-eyed
and bony as a rail, my body, like the family land, was flat and unfertile. Not yet bearing
fruit or bringing forth the possibility of life, I was stuck between being too young and too
grown. I was younger than thirteen when I started breathing in without breathing out,
waiting to see how long it would take for me to suffocate on my life—ordinary days that
repeated like a tape on rewind. I often sat on the steps of our trailer, my face resting in
my hands, watching women and waiting to see what words would be spoken between
them. The weather and whether or not so-and-so was doing right at home, and whether
or not white people were acting a fool on the job, and whether or not their children had
good sense, and whether or not there was enough money for bills and groceries, and
whether or not the preacher preached a good word on Sunday, and whether or not they
felt like grinning over crying—all this usually dictated their moods and their words.
1