February 4, 1998

The Occult of True Black Womanhood: Critical Demeanor and Black Feminist Studies by Ann duCille

DuCille's article is an airing of concerns and criticisms surrounding the recent explosion of scholarly interest and work in the field of black feminist studies. She sees this surge of interest in black womanhood as a way of further marginalizing and demeaning the experiences and expertise of black women scholars. DuCille believes that the field did not become legitimized and situated in academia until white scholars developed an interest in it. She uses the example of Gerda Lerner's work, Black Women in White America. Lerner purports to let black women speak for themselves, but fails to see how her writing about the words of black women usurps the power of those words. DuCille argues that black women have been speaking for themselves long before Lerner decided to "let" them speak.

She also emphasizes the importance that white scholars, both male and female, place on explaining how and why they came to be interested in issues of black womanhood. She terms this the, Driving Miss Daisy Syndrome. In her explanation of this she cites Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born. Rich's discussion of her "Black mother" illustrates her paternal stance and she fails to see that this woman, who she credits with so much impact on her life, remains silent and nameless in her book. Like Lerner, Rich speaks for this black woman. DuCille's most explicit example is the work of John Callahan. This example serves to illustrate how the Driving Miss Daisy Syndrome, "transforms power and race relations to make best friends out of driver and driven, master and slave, boss and servant, white boy and black man."(p. 43). This is a valid criticism. However, I believe that DuCille's analysis obliterates the idea that persoanl frienships can develop and transcend power differentials.

Ultimately, duCille believes that the black woman's place as Other makes it almost impossible for her to be acknowledged and respected within the scholarly and literary tradition. It is DuCille's claim that black women's experience only becomes legitimate when represented by white scholars. "to be valid- to be true- black womanhood must be legible as white and male; the texts of black women must be readable as maps, indexes to someone else's experience, subject to a seemingly endless process of translation and transference."(p. 49). She seems disenchanted and negative about changes occurring in the future. She believes that the current scholars are, "too much the products of the white patriarchal society that has reared us and the white Eurocentric educational system that has trained us."(p. 50). She sees little hope for the future except in the possible collaboration of white and black women. This futile attitude seems very bleak but possibly quite realistic. We, as the future generation of scholars, can only strive to become part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.

This summary was written by Brooke Sams