The critical piece of literature, “A Black Feminist Statement” by the Combahee River Collective, provides its readers with the backbone of what Black feminism is. The Combahee River Collective is a collection of Black feminists that established itself in 1974. Their fundamental cause is fighting “against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression” (A Black Feminist Statement 210). The Combahee River Collective, in other words, sees Black feminism as “the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppression that all women of color face” (A Black Feminist Statement 210). The theory of Black Feminism found in “A Black Feminist Statement” prepares an essential foundation for the novel Corregidora. Gayl Jones’
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Some women used art to tell their stories, illustrating their pain, like an anonymous Black woman in Alabama who created a beautiful quilt “that portrays the story of the Crucifixion” (Walker 239). Those women, like the protagonist, Ursa were “Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality. This lifestyle is the basis of Art.” (Walker 233). There are countless artistic ways to process traumatic events whether it be through painting or singing. For Black women like Ursa, it is not as important which type they chose to cope through art because of their hardships, but the fact that they chose to create something instead of breakdown others like they have been broken down. Ursa uses the art form of song to channel both her tragic family history and her own troubling life events. Ursa creates something beautiful out of the traumatic life she lived and her past generations lived as …show more content…
From the generation of her great-grandmother to herself, the women in Ursa’s family have been abused sexually, physically and emotionally. It is traced back to her great-grandmother who was a slave of a white man, named Corregidora. Both Ursa’s great-grandmother and her grandmother were mercilessly tortured by Corregidora. Corregidora molested Ursa’s grandmother, his own child, to impregnate her with Ursa’s mother. Although Ursa’s mother was able to escape Corregidora’s ruthless abuse, she was not free of the domestic abuse and sexually assault that mother and grandmother experienced. Ursa’s mother was sexually and physically abused by Ursa’s father, Martin. The history of the women in Ursa is important to note because it is the root of her passion for singing. Ursa took the stories from her great grandmother, grandmother, and mother and the emotions that those stories elicit to create something concrete and tangible. Alice Walker echoes this idea by talking about how the stories she writes are her mother’s stories. Alice explains that “through years of listening to my mother’s stories of her life, I have absorbed not only the stories themselves, but something of the matter in which she spoke, something of the urgency that involves the knowledge that her stories-like her life-must be recorded” (Walker 240). Ursa sang about those horrors and tried to “explain it,
Some women used art to tell their stories, illustrating their pain, like an anonymous Black woman in Alabama who created a beautiful quilt “that portrays the story of the Crucifixion” (Walker 239). Those women, like the protagonist, Ursa were “Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality. This lifestyle is the basis of Art.” (Walker 233). There are countless artistic ways to process traumatic events whether it be through painting or singing. For Black women like Ursa, it is not as important which type they chose to cope through art because of their hardships, but the fact that they chose to create something instead of breakdown others like they have been broken down. Ursa uses the art form of song to channel both her tragic family history and her own troubling life events. Ursa creates something beautiful out of the traumatic life she lived and her past generations lived as …show more content…
From the generation of her great-grandmother to herself, the women in Ursa’s family have been abused sexually, physically and emotionally. It is traced back to her great-grandmother who was a slave of a white man, named Corregidora. Both Ursa’s great-grandmother and her grandmother were mercilessly tortured by Corregidora. Corregidora molested Ursa’s grandmother, his own child, to impregnate her with Ursa’s mother. Although Ursa’s mother was able to escape Corregidora’s ruthless abuse, she was not free of the domestic abuse and sexually assault that mother and grandmother experienced. Ursa’s mother was sexually and physically abused by Ursa’s father, Martin. The history of the women in Ursa is important to note because it is the root of her passion for singing. Ursa took the stories from her great grandmother, grandmother, and mother and the emotions that those stories elicit to create something concrete and tangible. Alice Walker echoes this idea by talking about how the stories she writes are her mother’s stories. Alice explains that “through years of listening to my mother’s stories of her life, I have absorbed not only the stories themselves, but something of the matter in which she spoke, something of the urgency that involves the knowledge that her stories-like her life-must be recorded” (Walker 240). Ursa sang about those horrors and tried to “explain it,