With this being my follow up blog to Crossing the Mangrove, it should come as no surprise when I say that I absolutely “heart” the work of distinguished writer, Maryse Condé. Although not the subject of this blog, I am appreciative, amused, and at times, astonished about the feedback which I received from friends and family regarding my initial piece on Condé’s Crossing the Mangrove. The most interesting comment is from a friend, who after reading the piece, adamantly exclaimed, YES YOU CAN CROSS THE MANGROVE! She is of the opinion that there is too much emphasis on the diversities amongst groups with similar cultural characteristics and histories. Rather than being constructive, this emphasis is divisive and delusive. To some measure, I support her thesis but I am also wary of the convenience of ‘throwing out the baby with the bath water.’ An emphasis on multiculturalism, as evident by England’s social experiment in recent years, may lead to occasional incidents of ethnocentrism and isolationism or Samuel Huntingdon’s premonition of the “Clash of Civilizations.” However, an accentuation of the doctrine of assimilation and reductionism will result in incidents of racism and ethnically-based acts of discrimination as one group ascends to the throne of social hierarchy in order to assert itself as the ideal or normative group which other groups must aspire to or model. My compromise is, let’s keep the baby and discard the baby water. Although a difficult balance to achieve, it is not an elusive or empty quest.
That being said, I shift my attention to the blog-at-hand, which is concerned with relationships. I am particularly interested in relationships between the black woman and the black man. Yes, I can almost hear the chorus of accusations: another angry, grieved or scorned black woman seeking to exercise vengeance on black men by taking advantage of the popular adage that the pen (or laptop keyboard) is mightier than the sword. No, I am not; at least not today. Today, I am in a good mood and will be more sympathetic to black men than the former slave plantation system and the current penal system. Today, I explore Maryse Condé’s novel, I Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, which is a literary account of the historical Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. The novel narrates the story of the Salem trials through the voice of Tituba. Although there is controversy surrounding the race and ethnicity of Tituba, Condé reincarnates Tituba as the daughter of a fearless Ashanti slave, Abena. Condé describes Tituba as “a slave originating from the West-Indies and probably practicing ‘hoodoo.’” I focus on Condé’s representation of relationships between women and men during the 17th century period of religious extremism, slavery and perversion of justice, which incidentally sounds a lot like the 21st century. Without ruining the storyline, especially for those who have not yet read it, Tituba is the product of the savagery of the Slave Trade. Abena becomes pregnant with Tituba when she is raped on the slave ship by a white captor. As a young child, Tituba witnesses her mother’s death for wounding the slave master in a courageous act of defense against rape. Like her slain mother, Tituba grows up to be a self-affirmed, strong and self-sufficient woman. She derives strength from the link that she maintains with her West-African roots and traditions by means of consorting with her ancestral spirits Mama Yaya and Abena. However, it is her love for the slave John Indian that leads her into slavery and consequently results in her wrongful imprisonment for witchcraft in Salem.
At first read, the novel appears to have the literary ingredients of a romantic drama or love-trap: strong assertive black woman meets black man and finds herself in human servitude for the rest of her life. Instead, I Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, is to some measure, a story about the unique and sometimes, complicated love-relationship between the black woman and her black man. It acknowledges that the black man, like the black woman, struggles to free himself from the shackles of racism and discrimination. Accused of and imprisoned for witchcraft, Tituba befriends a white woman named Hester, who is charged with adultery. However, Hester is critical of Tituba’s relationship with men, in particular, John Indian. She exclaims to Tituba, “You’re too fond of love, Tituba! I’ll never make a feminist out of you!” Hester’s comment reflects a widely accepted view that feminism is anti-men. Such a view is touted as universal but, in fact, represents a myopic definition of feminism that alienates and undermines the merit of several women and men. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gerbert in her article “Decolonizing Feminism,” remarks on the incongruity of rooting Caribbean women’s movements and literature within U.S. and European theories developed to analyze different sociopolitical realities. Hester’s comment characterizes a westernized view of feminism which negates Caribbean women’s struggle against sexism and misogyny. It is this desire to give expression to the uniqueness of African women, specifically African Diasporans’ experiences, that manifests in the ideals of Africana womanism. In the article, "What’s in a Name? Womanism, Black Feminsim, and Beyond;" Patricia Collins describes Africana women’s rejection of the term “feminism” as a direct result of the word’s historical association with the “white women’s cause.” Rather than seek to conform to universal ideals of feminism, Africana womanism celebrates the cultural experiences of women in the African Diaspora. In Condé’s Tituba, I find the embodiment of Africana womanism. As a Diasporan, Tituba embraces her culture and employs the traditional religion and medicinal potions that she learns from Mama Yaya to heal the sick and communicate with her ancestors. Her reliance on traditional religion may also be viewed as an act of retaliation against the patriarchal and religious system of the slave plantation that sought to demonize African cultures and bring both African men and women under further subjugation through religious indoctrination. Tituba, like her Ashanti mother, fights until her death against the domination of slavery and in particular, white men.
Unlike Hester, Tituba’s enemies are not merely men but white society with its system of slavery and institutionalized racism that physically, socially, economically and politically discriminates against African women and men. Unlike Hester whose crime is that she is an adulterer, Tituba’s crime is that she is black: a black witch. She is black like the clothes one wears to a funeral. She is black like a black omen. She is black like black Friday. And like the black sheep of Salem, she faces the slaughterhouse to pay for her sin of black magic. Although both women face death and share stories of oppression at the hands of a white male dominated society, their socio-cultural, political and economic realities and available methods of challenging and coping with these realities differ. Paravisini-Gerbert describes, “A central feature of U.S. feminist theory [as] the emergence of a fully emancipated woman …an image born of the myths of rugged individualism.” However, the Africana womanist is primarily concerned with the wider struggle for the liberation of all people of African descent, black men included. Yet, allegiance to race over gender is not unique to the Africana woman. The Suffragist movement in America during the 19th and 20th century, sought the constitutional right for women to vote and was marked by two distinct groups of suffragist; those who fought for universal suffrage and those who exclusively fought for suffrage for the white woman. The difference between “for whites only” women suffragists and Africana womanists is one seeks the rights of white women and the continued discrimination of black women and the other seeks the rights of black people (female or male) and the renunciation of white domination and racism. Tituba’s love for John Indian may not conform to traditional ideals of feminism but her commitment to the liberation of her people as well as herself is an act of Caribbean feminine heroism and the epitome of Africana womanism.
By Ria Collingwood-Boafo,
November 2009.