Social Problems In Our Communities Woman On The Verge

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There have been many authors whose themes and tones advocate for social problems in our communities. Many authors do write and sell their pieces as a source of income turning their skills into careers but there are those who write to give their personal experience and sentiments especially on aspects affecting the community surrounding them. Inspirations to write may range from money motive to influence by fellow authors but for some, it is a way of expression and hence they write to express themselves. In America, the community has a wide range of influences and the country boasts of many writers, influences of these writers come from the broader religion, social, political, and economic status of the region. Some may be fiction and some real-life experience. The social segment is the most interesting factor as it touches on the day-to-day life aspects and in most cases, many people can relate to the given narrative. This paper is going to look at what the slow dying marginalized people go through as they try to accomplish their goals in life but at the same time deal with the reality, which is full with hopelessness and harshness. By analyzing How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf books this paper will observe the slow death of marginalized people.
The south is known for having smart authors as it a distinctive region. The Southerners have a unique way of telling stories and their skills and voices match no others in the country. Among the many authors of the South is Kiese Laymon who recently dazzled many with the writing skills portrayed in How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Kiese Laymon who is African American was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He attended Jackson State University after graduating from Millsaps College. He graduated from Oberlin College and earned an MFA in fiction in Indiana University. He is currently a professor in English and creative writing at Mississippi University. During the fall of 2017, he served as distinguished visiting professor of nonfiction. His outstanding works include How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America among other essays he has written for local newspapers.
Laymon parents were still in college when he was born and the mother becomes a political science professor at the black Jackson University. A university professor gets a good salary and hence Laymon may not have experienced the common African American lifestyle of embittered, impoverished, and growing up black in general but he has a profound understanding of the same going through his work.
The other piece to be used in this comparative essay is for Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. A renowned novelist, performance artist, poet, and playwright Ntozake Shange is another perfect writer to help in delivering the chosen thesis. Her work is influenced by the experience of being a black woman and her ground is based on being a literary figure and a powerful American feminist. Her writing style is observed to be idiosyncratic and distinctive. She is quoted saying she would rather her readers struggle to make out the meaning in her piece as she does not want them to take control of the reading process.
Born Paulette Williams in 1948, Ntozake was raised in a middle-upper family in Trenton (New Jersey). Raised by both parents an air force surgeon father and a social worker mother Paulette had three siblings. She attended a new school where she often became a victim of social attacks and insults. Her parents inspired her to engage in literature and jazz. She went back to New Jersey at 13 where she graduated and enrolled at Barnard College. Her major was in American studies. She graduated with a master's degree at the University of Southern California. She got married in college and separated shortly after, the effects were devastating as she tried to commit suicide several times. She later managed her depression and decides to embrace her black culture by changing her name from Paulette to Ntozake Shange meaning who has her own things and he/she who walks with lions.
Both writers represent works with a wide base on the marginalized community. There are bits of many aspects in life but they concentrate also on racial profiling which has been a major problem in the United States over the years. Both authors talks of killing and suicide in their titles. As for Laymon, he kills himself and others through loving too much or not enough, by fighting, by quitting, by pushing forward no matter the opposition, and by eating too much. For Ntozake colored, girls suicide was to be influenced by the marginalization and discrimination faced.
Laymond stories are tailored to a southern black male perspective in his piece. He recounts incidents like when a gun was pulled on him, his creative way of showing the reader of depths and fear of the moments and at the same time carefully observing the institutional racism, police brutality, mental illness, black on black crime and parental love. Although the essays are slim, the piece is packed with an examination of emotional death and myriad of emotions. His raps are familiar like an older brother even though the blues impulses are present. His work tends to reach the gospel crescendo, for example, a preacher. It is only in hindsight that can people see the ways they were killing themselves and others around them.
In the worst of white folks, he begins with playing fart games in church whupping and ends with an actual death. This leap from a single incident to the worst of white folks is Laymon way of observing that a black man has to have a behavior that is beyond reproach. An African American who grew up in Mississippi knew that the worst of white folks was possible of dragging one from their home for no reason other than they are boredom, they would rape your sister, hang you on a tree, put you in jail or expel you from school. He describes himself as a cousin, brother, friend and a son because he has experienced enough racism to observe that on first glance race becomes the only context through which he is seen.
Invisibility is another aspect Laymon touches on as a black man. Invisibility existed in places where in his expectations it ought to have communities. Through his hip-hop stole, my southern black boy he talks of how the dominating hip-hop in California and New York had erased and overshadowed the stories he wanted to narrate as well as the regional pride. He observes that the south had become a huge factor on culture and sound that everyone had to pay attention. Although he observes that he is not sure of what meaning the southern artists are trying to put out there but he says is the most meaningful work in the world and without the contemporary and the historic sayings, doings, and sound of the Southern black girls and Southern black boys hip hop which affect American art would be conventional, pallid, sleek.
Ntozake like Laymon also uses a combination of poetry, music with drama and dance. Her work includes stories of seven women who endure oppression in the sexist and racist society. The innovative style of poetry, drama, and music is termed as important as she learned about her identity as a woman through music, dance, and drama. She also learned about her identity as an African through dance. The seven women are not given names; they simply represent the rainbow in the title. They are referred to in colors for example lady in brown, the lady in red and so on. They each narrate their own story. These stories are interwoven together ...