“These hoes ain’t loyal” –Chris Brown

“And the women also knew” –Aisha Finch, Ph.D.

“While contemporary black male intellectuals claim to challenge the hegemony of a racialized social formation, most fail to challenge the hegemony of their own assumptions about black masculinity.” –Hazel V. Carby, Ph.D.

Grammer: the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics

 

IN 1822 the United States remained haunted by the ghost of the Haitian revolution—historically believed to have been led by Toussaint Louverture. Despite being aware of the revolution as well as the fears around it, the United States purchased Louisiana territory from France who was eager to sell in 1803 because of the island revolt (also known as the Louisiana purchase). How the revolution took place on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and how it is remembered in popular memory matters and has come to play a significant role in what this blog post identifies as a Black American grammar.

For the purposes of having a point of departure whereby all readers may center their thoughts, by utilizing Black American Grammar I mean a method of communication in which Black persons in the United States communicate with one another that is often not perceptible by those of other races and ethnicities. My use of ‘Black persons in the United States’ is intentional as this communication type is not exclusive to African Americans, but rather, is experienced across those of the African Diaspora who reside in the United States. The forms of Black American Grammar are several: nodding in particular ways, the locking of eyes, the vocal expression of ‘chile’ or ‘bro’ and many, many more. Black American Grammar is perhaps at its best in the presence of those who do not belong to the diaspora and in racialized hostile working environments. It is a secret communication in which information is both given and received, and often times is a communication in which a plan of action is conceived, confirmed, and executed. This type grammar is not exclusive to Black Americans, but what I wish to assert here is that there is a particularity to the Black American Grammar which those of the African diaspora learn so that they may communicate hidden messages and participate collectively in acts of subversion, resistance, and solidarity. The key to Black American Grammar is that it is learned within Black American culture and one’s inability to ‘read’ and ‘communicate’ messages properly could very well mean one’s demise or communal exclusion, signal one’s inability to be trusted, or mark one as an outsider within. How Black American Grammar has come to be depicted in Black popular culture and who is believed to understand it and its rules has significant implications for our current time, and perhaps most importantly, signals to the larger community who we should and should not trust within our community.  

In 1822 Denmark Vesey “with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor of Charleston’s workhouse…stood before a court made up of five freeholders and magistrates.”[1] Vesey was charged with being the “author and original instigator…[of a] diabolical plot that sought to bring blood, outrage, rapine, and conflagration, and introduce anarchy and confusion in their most horrid forms to South Carolina.”[2] Historian’s, in review of Vesey’s trial, have been careful to note how the trail “revealed the intellectual sophistication, organizational skills, and tactical abilities” which Vesey and his most trusted friends displayed and executed.[3] More importantly, the trial revealed that once Vesey and his colleagues had neutralized the militia, they had plans to set fire to the city of Charleston and escape, via ship, to the island of Haiti. Indeed the Haitian Revolution, some years later, was not lost on the Enslaved and white American society. This constant haunting and presence of the Haitian Revolution in the American mind—whether enslaved or free—came to not only suggest who was capable of revolution, but also who knew the intricacies of Black American grammar.

Transcripts of Vesey’s trial reveal that Black men were interrogated more aggressively and in greater number than Black women. A close reading of the trial transcripts suggest that Black women who were interrogated did in fact know more than what they stated on the witness stand. However, their statements were not probed deeply because Black women were not perceived as being aware of the plans or, more importantly, being a crucial part of Vesey’s plot (which is in itself an aspect of Black American grammar: dissemblance—see Darlene Clark Hine). For officials of the court, Vesey’s plan was a masculine project in likeness to that of Louverture—for court officials, it was only Black men who could speak Black American grammar fluently. And for their perceived exceptional intellectual capabilities Denmark Vesey and five of his co-conspirators were hung on July 2; while their deaths signaled the end of Black conspiring in the mind of the State there was a lingering, overlooked, and underestimated problem: the women also knew.

This peculiar idea that Black men intimately know the intricacies of Black American grammar is not only present in court transcripts, but also come to play out in the contemporary imagination of film makers; further, the notion that Black men only know this unique grammar is supported by both Black men and white society. Birth of a Nation, a film by Nate Parker released in October 2016, received significant push back and protest. Many of the protests did not have to do with the film itself, but rather a case from Parker’s past in which he was tried for the rape of young woman during his college days. While these protests certainly have a point (which I support), it is Parker’s film that I wish to point to briefly that finds resonance in both the white historic past and in many twenty-first century black-male film makers.  

Birth of a Nation recalls the revolt of Nat Turner—an enslaved African American in Virginia. Throughout the film Turner communicates with several of his peers to plan and execute one of the most well-known slave revolts in American history. However, during the process enslaved Black women are relegated to the margins. They are excluded from the covert Black American grammar that is rich with resistance and subversion. In the film, enslaved Black women maintain their expected gender roles in child rearing and supporting their husbands. They are impossibly queer, in constant service of the hetero-Black male project, and are rendered incapable of speaking or understanding Black American Grammar. Resistance is not their project, rather submission and complacency come to reflect behaviors of Black women within the male psyche regardless of race and/or ethnicity.

What the (factual) trial of Denmark Vesey and the (fictive) recalling of Nat Turner’s narrative communicates to larger Black American society is that Black women do not speak and are not aware of Black American grammar. And this suggestion remains in place across the vast majority of Black films, including the recently released hit Get Out. The 2017 film has received rave reviews from many Black Americans—particularly for its take on racial interactions and relationships. However, what I wish to suggest here is that Get Out, while racially insightful, is equally damaging in its depiction of Black women and compels us to consider the many ways in which race and gender are mutually constitutive projects; and while addressing the problematics of race often liberates hetero-Black men, it often leaves captive Black women.

In Get Out Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, visits the home of his white girlfriend’s parents. While many things happen throughout the film, what stuck out to me was the communication between the Black community on the Armitages’ estate (as well as those off, particularly Lil Rel Howery, who plays Rod Williams, a TSA officer). The communication between the Black characters was nothing short of Black American grammar with the exception of one character: Georgina, played by Betty Gabriel.

In the film Chris has various interactions with other Black people who share the environment of the Armitages’ home. When he encounters Georgina and Walter, he becomes immediately aware that something is off. Chris’ interaction with Walter is noticeably different from that of Georgina. With Walter Chris is interested in finding out more about him and meeting Walter on his terms. Chris affirms Walter in a roundabout way when he greets him: “they have you working hard out here.”; to which Walter responds “I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.” While Chris acknowledges the duress Walter may be working under, he affirms him as strong and acknowledges his manhood, via his ‘working hard’ statement; while Walter in turn emphasizes his agency via his reply. Chris also has another interaction with Andre (or Logan)—who has gone missing from the opening scene and shows up later as one who has been hypothesized and resides in the sunken place. Chris is elated to see Logan and believes in his ability to speak and perform Black American Grammar only to be disappointed…at least at the moment, because Logan later comes through for Chris in a significant way that Georgina is rendered incapable of, despite the redeemable quality Chris gives Rose, his white girlfriend, at the end of the film. In this wise, one point of the film becomes clear: white women maintain their position as sympathetic and rehabilitative subjects, as Black women are relegated to entangled positions of misrecognition and disposability.  

Interestingly, or perhaps predictably, in sharp contrast to his interactions with Walter and Logan, Chris’ first significant encounter with Georgina is one of instability: Georgina spills Chris’ tea as she is pouring it in his glass. Georgina is depicted as not being stable under pressure or duress (unlike her Black male opposites), and she is nicely chastised by the racist Ms. Armitage, the plantation mistress, as a result of mistreating Chris (who coincidently was also rescued by white womanhood in his encounter with police earlier in the film). In the next significant scene (as it relates to his interaction with Georgina) Chris is taking pictures of nature and manages to see Georgina in the privacy of her room and attempts to take a picture of her as she is preparing herself in the mirror. Here, while Walter is given an element of privacy and agency in an open space outside, Georgina is extended just the opposite in a closed space: she becomes the object of invasion and voyeurism—a body to be consumed in the male gaze without permission. Later in the film Chris grows suspicious of Georgina because his phone is found off the charger—and despite her explanation, Chris remains suspicious of her. Moreover, during her explanation Georgina is depicted as complicit in the Armitage’s project. Chris is unable to communicate with her successfully both in terms of direct conversation and the secret Black American grammar. In the film Georgina cannot help Chris, she has no desire to, she is jealous over him (due to the white girlfriend), and desires to kill him (the scene in the car at the end). Further, just when the audience is led to believe Chris and Georgina are about to have a straightforward conversation about what is going on, Georgina tells Chris that he is wrong and that the Armitage’s are good people. This is how Black women come to be portrayed in Get Out; and like the Denmark Vesey Trial and Birth of a Nation, Black women are portrayed as incapable of resistance and deciphering Black American grammar.

Chris’ search for freedom is ultimately found in Logan, who after experiencing the life resurrecting impact of a white flash from Chris’ cellphone, tells him to get out—the name sake of the film (this ultimately helps Chris to get to Rod who rescues Chris, and Chris alone, from the Armitages’ estate). As Chris is attempting to escape he runs over Georgina and contemplates leaving her there, however struggles with the memory of his mother which compels him to place Georgina in the car with him. What is noticeable here is that (1) Chris did not see Georgina apparently, (2) he thinks about leaving her behind in service of his freedom. As Chris is driving the car (which was owned by a white male…catch it!) speedily toward escape, Georgina attacks Chris ultimately being cast as the reason the car crashes (as opposed to Chris’ erratic out of control handling and speed). And with this scene, the final scene in which a Black woman is featured, the message becomes clear: Black women are not to be trusted and will kill you if possible because they do not support Black men. If we allow the car to stand in as the contested and allusive prize of manhood that is in constant struggle between Black and White men, then Georgina becomes a presence whose purpose it is to wreck (read take) the manliness or manhood of men—both Black and White (interesting to note here that the car is a white two door coupe being driven by a Black man). However, interestingly, this representation of manhood ends up killing Georgina upon its wrecking, however Chris survives. He walks away from the wreck unconcerned of Georgina’s death, yet connects with Rose in an intimate redeeming way even as she tried to kill him.

While it can be argued that Chris’ handling of manhood (the car) worked to kill Georgina, thereby rendering her void of subjectivity, Walter is given agency and is permitted to deal the death bullet to Rose and himself. What is most intriguing about this interaction is that both Walter and Georgina’s bodies have been occupied by Rose’s grandparents. This serves to only reinforce the white view that Black women are not capable of reading and communicating the Black American grammar, while Black men are—a view that is reinforced by many Black men themselves.

Here the work of Hidden Figures and Black Lives Matter comes into sharp relief. The film Hidden Figures and the movement Black Lives Matter (started by three queer Black women), bring into sharp relief that Black Women DO in fact communicate in and read Black American grammar and know how to do so toward building national projects and saving lives—literally. While Chris in Get Out affirms Chris Brown’s assertion that “these hoes ain’t loyal;” the lived experience of Black women repeatedly affirm Professor Aisha Finch’s assertion—“and the women also knew.” Dr. Finch’s position also finds a considerable witness in the recent happenings of Jeff Sessions, whom Coretta Scott, speaking from the grave, gave a very strong warning about.

Interestingly when Black women speak directly or in Black American grammar, they are ignored by both their raced peers and their raced opposites. Interestingly, both Coretta Scott and Georgina speak from the grave, and their voices ask a question that is both haunting and transforming: how long will you mute our voices in service of preserving manhood and your right to life through it?  

What Jordan Peele has to think through is: what is the message of his film? And who is being sacrificed in service of the race men in his project (which Hazel Carby has written about at length)?

In closing I offer the words of Phillip Brian Harper, who Hazel Carby quotes at the beginning of her book Race Men: “Since the dominant view holds prideful self-respect as the very essence of healthy African American identity, it also considers such identity to be fundamentally weakened wherever masculinity appears to be compromised. While this fact is rarely articulated, its influence is nonetheless real and pervasive. Its primary effect is that all debates over and claims to ‘authentic’ African-American identity are largely animated by a profound anxiety about the status specifically about African-American masculinity.”

[1] Edward A. Pearson, Designs Against Charleston: The Trial Record of Denmark Vesey Slave Conspiracy of 1822 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.