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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 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Boylorn, Robin M., "Southern Black Women: Their Lived Realities" (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1869 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact 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

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