Africana Womanism and the Critical Need for Africana Theory and Thought
Clenora Hudson-Weems, The Western Journal of Black Studies, 21.2 (Summer 1997): 79-84.
As we approach the last hour leading up to the next millennium, I can not stress enough the critical
need today for Africana scholars throughout the world to create our own paradigms and theoretical
frameworks for assessing our works. We need our own Africana theorists, not scholars who duplicate
or use theories created by others in analyzing Africana texts. Indeed, developing paradigms and critical
theories, which is our true mission, makes possible for better monitoring interpretations of our works
in an effort to keep them both authentic and accurate in order to maintain their originality in meaning
and value. The problem, however, is that contrary to white or European theorists, who justifiably
approach their literature from the perspective of the centrality of their culture, Eurocentrism, most
Africana scholars use theories that are alien and have not been passed through our cultural matrix or
lens.. While we may have the primary texts, such as the huge body of material by Zora Neale Hurston,
we do not on the whole extract from them our own African-centered theories to analyze and explicate
the many layers of interpretations that lie within. Instead, we take the Procrustean approach, via
superimposing alien or outside theories and methodologies as a primary means of analyzing and
interpreting our texts from a so-called legitimate, universally theoretical perspective. Be it known that
this ruling perspective in reality is none other than just another perspective. Interestingly, the dominant
culture sees absolutely no need to apply our theories in the analysis of their texts.
For the moment, then, let us demystify the European theorists, who situate their analysis within the
construct of the centrality of Europe. Ferdinand de Saussure, a French linguist, "considered
linguistics to be concerned with a social institution. He identified language as a system of signs [and]
he proposed a distinct set of sciences within semiology, now generally known as semeiotics" (Makaryk
467). This system of signs/words, has a signifier (word itself) and the signified (the "meaning" of the
word). He stresses that language does not convey reality, and thus, calling a thing a desk does not
necessarily make it so. He contends that there are two oppositions, which are language (langue), "an
abstract system maintained by a social group," and speech (parole), "the manifestations of that
system," (Makaryk 467). While all of this information is good, and just a given for that matter,
focusing exclusively on the external parameters of form rather than content, which is the message, the
critical component for us, makes it clear that form here is, in fact, more important than the content,
which inauthenticates our focus, since we are at a critical juncture in life regarding our destiny as an
oppressed people. Clifford Geertz, another European theorist, a cultural anthropologist who
"construes culture as a text, something to be read and interpreted," (Makaryk 331) is more involved
with the milieu or cultural textual analysis. While his theory is at least ostensibly somewhat compatible
with our text because of the emphasis on culture, we must be cautioned that it can only be so if it is
endemic, that is from an insider's perspective, which is not generally the case. For sure, we are familiar
with the established reputation of traditional anthropologists and the traditional non-endemic work that
they have created, usually studying so-called "primitive" cultures from the perspective of the outsider.
That was essential the problem with such studies by renowned anthropologists like Franz Boas and
Margaret Mead, for example. While Hurston was considered a protégée of Boas, he provided only a
taxonomy within which Hurston might place and categorize the oral literature, in which she was totally
immersed, a prism through which mainstream culture might better understand oral literature. To be
sure, Hurston was an anthropologist long before she met Boas. She, of course, took anthropology to a
higher level, almost to a divine place as an endemic anthropologist. Needless to say, then, nothing new
will come from this kind of structural analysis for us.
Jacque Lacan, a French linguist, psychoanalysis and philosopher, stresses how mind and memory
come together in associational links, i.e. the stream of consciousness technique. This novel form,
which explores the mental activity of the characters, was first introduced by 19th French writer, Du
Jardin, in his novel, We're to the Woods No More, and later used by Virginia Woolf in her novels, To
the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dallaway, and The Waves, and James Joyce in his enormously lengthy 900 plus
page novel exploring a single day of the mental as well as the physical activities of his characters in
Ulysses, and even later by William Faulkner with all of the material exploring the mental activity of
the idiot, Benji, in his novel, The Sound and the Fury. Here again demonstrated is the emphasis on
style and form rather than content, which, while it is important in and of itself, is not the primary thing
for us as Africana people.
Jacque Derrida, a French theorist from Algeria, who is a deconstructionist critic with poststructural
textual analysis, puts together theories about binary oppositions that are infinitely interchangeable,
minus the third realm, which is the real or the effect on others. His response to the significance of the
colors black and white in South Africa on the issue of Apartheid was that there is no difference and
that they are one and the same since they are infinitely interchanging. As others, we, too, should be a
bit skeptical here. In fact, his response marked the beginning of his decline as a literary critic. To be
sure, the inapplicability of this theory for us should be clear, since Black is always Black and white is
certainly always white with all its limitations and privileges respectively. Another European theorist,
Milhail Bakhtin, a Russian formalist, who offers a corrective to the linguist, comes closest, but not
close enough, to a theory that could possibly work for Africana texts, with his emphasis on language as
imbedded in the social context, the social context being the key component for us. He stresses the
element of dialogue, "a model of creativity which assumed that the interaction of at least two embodied
voices or personalities was the sine qua non for genuine consciousness" (Makaryk 243). He proposes a
dialogic process of communication, a kind of "call and response," if you will, which we know comes
from African tradition, with the many voices, "polyglossia," which is the polymorphous stage of the
voice, the spirit of the carnival, the "carvinalesque," and the world of topsy-turveydom, all of which
are familiar within the African construct with emphasis on orality. In other words, there is no particular
need to cite this theorist, since the primary components used have always been an integral part of
Africana life, thought and philosophy. Hence, there is no need for Africana texts to be analyzed and
explicated via the use of outside theory. To be sure, all of these theorists place Europe and whiteness at
the center of their analysis, which we as Africana people should find somewhat problematic for an
Africana perspective.
Clearly what we have here is what my very close, highly esteemed mentor Dr. Richard K.
Barksdale calls in his collection of lectures and essays, Praisesong of Survival, and specifically in the
selection entitled "Critical Theory and Problems of Canonicity in African American Literature," a
fascination with "French-based theories of textual criticism" (36) on the part of American theorists,
emphasizing the propensity toward "ignoring history and personal experience" while emphasizing "an
ivory towerish sense of intellectual mystification" (Barksdale 36). I neither desire nor need to imbue
my analyses with these or other white critics like Lentricchia who for example, "argues against the
social isolation engendered by textual deconstruction and encourages the use of theories advanced by
Gramsci and Foucault for promoting individual empowerment" (Barksdale 37). We obviously have our
own critics who express an interest in the importance of the historical, political, and social context of
our literature. For example, while Alaine Locke calls for l'art pour l'art, insisting that "the Black artist
should take a purely aesthetic approach to written material," (Hill 788), W. E. B. DuBois, whom
Patricia Liggins Hill, general editor if Call and Response and herself a Black Aesthetician, calls a
progenitor of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Aesthetics of the searing sixties, asserts in a
1926 The Crisis article that "we do not believe in art simply for art's sake" (Hill 789). Further in
"Criteria of Negro Art" in The Crisis, DuBois contends that all Art is propaganda and ever must be,
despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for
writing, has been used always for propaganda, for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. . . .
The ultimate judge has got to be you (Hill 790).
Later, in his "Dramatis Personae," in 1930, DuBois asserts that "All art is propaganda and without
propaganda there is no true art" (Hill 790). Moreover, according to Barksdale,
Richard Wright's assessment that all literature is a protest against something and that without a
protesting and politicized literature, needed changes will never be recognized, discussed, or
successfully implemented (34). Barksdale, then says of himself and his co-editor of the anthology
Black Writers of America: A Comprehensive Anthology, we were more on fire with political energy
than inspired by literary insight. . . . Kiinnamon and I forged a black literary canon full of political
content. . . . For me a literary act is a political act (34)
Be that as it may, Barksdale sees too clearly the broader picture, which he outlines in his last lecture
in Baltimore, November 1989 at the Langston Hughes Society conference, which he founded. Shortly
after his keynote address, he received a scathing letter from one of our well-known Black
deconstructionist critics, condemning him as an "out dated race man" regarding his perspective on the
matter of theory. Unfortunately, however, that letter of attack went unanswered, for in less than a
month, Barksdale, who verbally expressed to his wife that he was very disappointed that a young Black
scholar whom he had encouraged would disregard the true legacy of Africana literature, suffered the
first of many strokes which ultimately caused his death. Moreover, even if he did disagree with
Barksdale's accurate assessment regarding Africana theory and thought, the fact that he would do so in
such a way as to insult a senior mentor was both unacceptable and unexpected, since from an Africana
reality, respect and reverence of one's elders reign supreme. Be that as it may, according to Barksdale,
A major problem in African American literary canon formation, however, is the burgeoning influence
of the very fanciful critical theories . . . spreading throughout our major graduate schools. . . .Teachers
who have developed skills in these new areas of critical interpretation quickly attract advisees . . . They
not only have become the major dissertation directors, but they have a very strong voice in search and
hiring decisions. . . . . Indeed, one wonders whether PMLA has not become completely enamored of
the dense and jargon-ridden style and format practiced by the critical theorist. . . .
So critical theorists have built power bases of influence in many departments of literature, not only in
the literary bastions of the East and the West coasts, but throughout the departments of the Big Eight
and Big Ten universities. Where the universities have publishing presses, critical theorists also usually
exercise some influence on publishing decisions, either as press readers or members of press boards.
(35-36)
What we are talking about here is the awesome politics of employment and publications, as well as
one's credibility, visibility, and viability in academe. We have Dr. Barksdale's wife, Dr. Mildred
Barksdale, to thank for preserving both her husband's last speech and the condescending letter of
response, the former being published during his declining three years plus in that invaluable collection
Praisesong of Survival.
Barksdale's astute insights into the true nature and impact of this new critical wave led him to an
authentic position, and thus, what follows is his outlined recommendations for expanding and
broadening our African American literary canon. He proposes that
we ignore deconstruction, poststructual textual exegesis, and continental hermeneutics. African
American literature cannot effectively survive critical approaches that stress authorial
depersonalization and the essential unimportance of racial history, racial community, and racial
traditions. . . . I believe not in avoiding history but in elucidating history. Admittedly, I am that oldfashioned kind of historical critic who still stresses the three M's--the man, the moment, the milieu--in
approaching a literary work; and when we get to the text, I stress more M's--matter, manner, mode,
meaning. . . . So, I recommend that as we build our literary canon for the tomorrows that lie ahead in
the next century, we remain ever mindful of the need to utilize the politics of survival. This is
something to be found in the text of our history that ahistorical theorists like a Derrida, a Gramsci, or a
Lacan would not begin to understand (Barksdale 37-8).
What Barksdale is advocating, then, is that we return to the original mission of the African
American literary tradition, which was signaled in the form of the slave narrative, beginning with
Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the
African, Written by Himself. The slave narrative was, indeed, political as it set out to inform the public
of the sad psychological and physical conditions of enslaved Africana people with hopes of
galvanizing empathetic supporters for abolishing this evil system of total brute subjugation. And is not
the political exactly the essence and the objective of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin? This
tradition was to continue throughout for centuries, addressing the conditions of the oppressed on
whatever the level of racial oppression for that particular time. Indeed, this is to continue until racial
oppression is no more. Clearly, we have not reached that point as of yet, and thus, the need for
continued emphasis lives on, with a clear focus on content rather than form.
Like Barksdale and others before him, as a Black Aesthetics critic and theorist, I take for my
analysis of Africana texts an African-centered theory, grounded in Africana thought and action, and
hence, wht I am proposing, like Afrocentric scholar Molefe Asante and
other great Afrocentric scholars before him (Cheikh Anta Diop, John Henrik Clarke, Juself BenJochannan, and Chancellor Williams to name a few), is an Afrocentric perspective on Africana
issues--putting Africa in the center of the lives and concepts of Africanans. In this same way, Africana
Womanism commands an African-centered perspective of Africana women's lives--their historical,
current, and future interaction with their community, which includes their male counterparts. (HudsonWeems 47)
Like the dominant culture in preserving the integrity of their culture and art, we need these kinds of
theories, African-centered, for our own survival and the survival of our culture and history. At every
instance, we should ask the question as to if the theories we embrace, which are maps for analyzing all
texts, work for our unique experiences in this racially hostile world. In other words, the cultural
context, which is all embracing, such as language, history, dress, behavior, values and principles, is of
upmost importance. We do not have the luxury of spending too much time on external nuances, like
form, at the risk of sacrificing internal nuances, like content and meaning. Thus, our own critical
theories for analyzing our own critical experiences are needed so that we can begin to create
institutions of ideas, Black thought, for housing and disseminating our life experiences, historically,
currently and futuralistically.
Institutions like the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where Winston van Horne, the
conceptualizer of the discipline of Africology, which is the study of Africa and its people everywhere,
teaches, as well as Temple University, with Molefe Asante, director of the first department to offer a
Ph.. D. in African American Studies, could offer such an opportunity for creating true institutions of
Africana ideas. Therefore, a Ph.D. in African American/Africana Studies utilizing white theory is
counter productive to say the least. If mainstream theories and methodologies should take center stage
at such African centered institutions or programs, then why establish an African-centered Ph. D.
Program at all? With this in mind, the following are only some of the valid theories and approaches
that a Department of Afrocology/Africana/Black/Pan-African/African American Studies could find
strengthening for its unique programs:
Black Aesthetics Contiuum--Patricia Liggins Hill-University of San Franciso, Department of English
Kawida-- Maulana Karenga-Chair of Black Studies at California StateUniversity-Long Beach
Literary Garveyism-Tony Martin-Wellesley College
Africology--Winston van Horne-Chair of the Department of Africology, University of WisconsinMilwaukee
Afrocentricity--Molefi Asante-Temple University
Politics of Survival--Richard K. Barksdale-Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana
Africana Womanism--Clenora Hudson-Weems-University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of
English
Nkrumaist Literary Theory--Doreatha Drummond Mbalia-University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Department of Africology
Groundation in Africana Literary Texts-Wilfred Samuels-Chair of Ethnic Studies, University of
Utah
Economic Self Interest-Robert E. Weems, Jr.-University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of
History
Liberation via Equal Education-Alvin O. Chambliss, Jr.-Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Texas
Southern University
Racialized Bioethics-Maria Mootry-Director of African American Studies, University of Illinois at
Springfield
Jaded Jubilee? Year 2019, The Bible and Black Destiny-Larry Coleman-Civil Rights Attorney and
Minister, Kansas City, Missouri
New Black Liberalism-Lewis Randolph-Ohio University, Department of Political Sciences
Reclaiming Jazz in Africana Studies-James B. Stewart-Vice Provost, Pennsylvania State University
Rather than make a futile attempt to discuss and develop all of these theories, all of which will be
presented by the above theorists in a forthcoming book entitled Contemporary Africana Theory and
Thought: Into the Next Millennium, of which I am editor, my mission here is to focus exclusively on
the theory Africana Womanism, which I named, defined and refined. Notice that I did not say that I
created the idea of Africana Womanism; for it has always been in existence. Going back to preAmerican slavery and even to Africa, Africana women have been both African and family-centered,
key components of Africana womanism, concerned with the welfare of the entire family as her number
one priority. I simply named it and refined a paradigm relative to the role of the Africana woman
within the constructs of the modern women's movement so that we do not get confused or displaced
concerning our true roles in the lives of our families and communities. We are and have always been
co-partners with our male counterparts in the liberation struggle for our entire people--men, women,
and children. And that reality remains a top priority for all true Africana people.
With that in mind, what, then, is Africana Womanism ?
Neither an outgrowth nor an addendum to feminism, Africana Womanism is not Black feminism,
African feminism, or Walker's womanism that some Africana women have come to embrace. Africana
Womanism is an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in
African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses n the unique experiences, struggles, needs, and
desires of Africana women. . . . The primary goal of Africana women, then, is to create their own
criteria for assessing their realities, both in thought and in action. (Hudson-Weems 24, 50)
Indeed, Africana Womanism by its very definition is African-centered, as it places Africa at the
center of this analysis as it relates to Africana women. Even in the naming, Africa is at the center, for
in African cosmology, nommo is the proper naming of a thing which calls it into existence. Thus, the
terminology Africana womanism, not Black feminism, womanism or any other term, more
appropriately fits the Africana woman, who is both self-namer and self-definer. It is true that if you do
not name and define yourself, someone else surely will. And it is equally true that if you buy a
terminology, you likewise buy its agenda. And the agenda for the Africana woman is, indeed,
distinguishable from all other female based theories primarily because of its insistence upon the
prioritizing of race, class and, gender respectively. To be sure, this family-centered, race empowerment
agenda is in direct contravention to any brands of feminism, which are female-centered and concerned
above all else with female empowerment. In spite of the fact that Black feminists, for example, call for
simultaneity in combating race, class, and gender oppression, most of their energy goes into combating
female subjugation as a priority. Be that as it may, even white feminist, Bettina Aptheker, objectively
sees the picture and thus, she appropriately contends that when we place women at the center of our
thinking, we are going about the business of creating an historical and cultural matrix from which
women may claim autonomy and independence over their own lives. For women of color, such
autonomy cannot be achieved in conditions of racial oppression and cultural genocide. . . . In short,
"feminist," in the modern sense, means the empowerment of women. For women of color, such an
equality, such an empowerment, cannot take place until the communities in which they live can
successfully establish their own racial and cultural integrity (Aptheker 13).
Even if one finds it hard to conceive of prioritizing race, then class, and then gender, one need only
to look as Sojourner Truth's oration, "And Arn't I A Woman" in which she unpremeditatedly engaged
in a self actualization speech wherein she had to deal with first thing first. Before she could begin to
address the issue of the absurdity of female subjugation, which was her initial intention when she went
to the all white convention of mostly white women in Akron, Ohio in 1951, she had to deal with her
ostracism based on her color, race, followed by class:
"Well, chillun, whar dar is so much racket, dar must be something out o'kilter. I t'ink dat 'twixt de
niggers of de Souf an' de women at de Norf' all a-talkin' bout rights, de white men will be in a fix
pretty soon . . . Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober
ditches, and to have de best place everywhere. Nobody eber helped me into carriages, or ober mud
puddles, or give me any best place. And ain't I a woman? . . . I have borne thirteen chillun, and seen
'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me!
And ain't I a woman? . . . Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as
men 'cause Christ wan't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come
from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." (Truth 104)
Clearly the gender issue was the last to be addressed here, only after she has dealt with the race and
class issues.
Further emphasizing the race factor was Maria W. Stewart who, two decades before Truth's famous
oration, expanded the same work of Black cultural nationalism in 1831 by emphasizing the leadership
role that Black women must play in the Black liberation struggle, thereby picking up where David
Walker left off before his untimely and mysterious death, with his emphasis on Black male leadership
in the liberation struggle. This pre-Africana womanist advised . . . Black women to unite to express
and further develop their full potential as women and as culture bearers. Speaking before the AfricAmerican Female Intelligence Society, she charges black women with the survival and enrichment of
the black community (Hill 397).
Moreover, abolitionist Frances Harper, too, emphasized race as a priority for Africana people. Thus,
. . . when the two forces [abolitionists and feminists] became split over the issue of which group, black
men or white women, should be franchised . . . [she contended] that obtaining the ballot for part of the
race was far better than none [and] passionately pleaded for the greater urgency of black men's
attainment of the vote (Hill 346-7).
Likewise, with Harriet Tubman, the underground railroad conductor who went South nineteen times
during the 1850s to help free Black men, women, and children, and Ida B. Wells, the anti-lynching
crusader who began her investigations because her two male friends were lynched in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1892 because they became competitors to a white grocery store owner, Black liberation
was the number one priority. Indeed, all of these pre-Africana womanist activists found themselves
engaging in a race issues as a top priority. Indeed, all of these pre-Africana womanist activists found
themselves engaging in race issues as a top priority.
A critical issue regarding the independent name, Africana womanism, which has none of the
baggage with which feminism is being confronted, is the venomous beginnings of feminism. In 1870,
the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified giving Black men the right to vote. While
Black women were jubilant in this victory for the Africana family, realizing that a vote in the Black
community was a vote in our community, white women, on the other hand, some of whom had
benevolently fought to abolish slavery, believing that their benevolent activity would benefit them as
well in acquiring full fledged citizenship with the right to vote, were angry and thus, their liberal
posture radically shifted to a racist one:
For example, staunch conservative suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt and other women of her
persuasion insisted upon strong Anglo Saxon values and White supremacy. They were interested in
banding with White men to secure the vote for pure Whites, excluding not only Africanans but White
immigrants as well (Hudson-Weems 21).
Not only did they desire this chain of action, but they strategised as well, contending in The Free and
the Unfree that . . . there is but one way to avert the danger. Cut off the votes of the slums and give it to
women. . . . as a counterbalance to the foreign vote, and as a means of legally preserving White
supremacy in the South (Carol and Nobel 296).
With these clear racist overtones and the emphasis on female empowerment, it is evident that
Africana women can not claim the feminist agenda as theirs when our entire race is suffering and
dying as we speak. Observe South African activist, Ruth Mompati who talks about going into a large
auditorium and witnessing the decomposed bodies of all the innocent Black children who were victims
of apartheid. She contends that the South African woman, faced with the above situation, finds the
order of her priorities in her struggle for human dignity and her rights as a woman dictated by the
general political struggle of her people as a whole. The national liberation of the black South African is
a prerequisite to her own liberation and emancipation as a woman and a worker (Mompati 112-13)).
To be sure, creating an authentic theory for Africana people and Africana women in particular,
reflecting our true level of struggle, is crucial, lest we continue to lose ourselves, and particularly our
women in this case, to someone else's struggle. Note the June 1995 Supreme Court Decision on
Affirmative Action Set Asides. Those that were racially defined were ruled unconstitutional; those
based on gender equality were ruled fine and legal. Indeed, what will be the fate of the Black woman
who is defined by race first, as all people are? Needless to say, when the feminist has realized all her
demands, when she is at the top, the Black woman will still be Black, poor, and on the bottom. She
will then find herself trying to reenter her community to rejoin her people in the struggle for race
parity, only after much precious time and effort have been wasted. Her posture then would be what it
has been from the beginning, that of Africana Womanism, an African-centered paradigm, a theory
created for an African-centered perspective. Hence, it is clear that we need to operate from the start
with Africa at the center of all analyses concerning Africana life and thought, thereby eliminating futile
efforts in appropriating outside constructs. To be sure, an authentic paradigm must be mandatory for
Africana theorists so that our lives and texts could be accurately construed and interpreted.
"SANKOFA"--Go back and fetch the lessons of our past!
References
Barksdale, Richard K. "Critical Theory and Problems of Canonicity in African American Literature" in
Praisesong of Survival. Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1992, 32-38.
Hill, Patricia Liggins, general editor. Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African
American Literary Tradition. Boston: Heightenn Mifflin Company, 1997.
Hudson-Weems, Clenora. Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Troy, MI: Bedford Publishers,
1993.
Makaryk, Irena R., general editor. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1993.
Mompati, Ruth. "Women and Life Under Apartheid" in One Is Not A Woman, One Becomes: The
African Woman in a Transitional Society. Daphne Williams Ntiri, ed. Troy, MI: Bedford, 1982.
Truth, Sojourner. "And Arn't I A Woman" in Narrative of Sojourner Truth. New York: Arno and The
New York Times, 1968.