Shange draws a contrast between Sofia’s “anti-antiblack practice” and Abuelita’s Black practice”. What is the difference, then? The most noticeable feature that the chapter focuses on is the repeated question of “why can’t we learn African?” Asked by African American student in the US, the question reveals the compromises the African American population has made.
The setting where African American students do not have access to African languages in school also reminds me of a quote by Jasmine Cho that says “Privilege is when your culture is taught as a core curriculum, and mine is taught as an elective.” The parallel stands here as African American students are required to take “foreign language” courses, that counterintuitively and ironically do not include what is called the “African” language. This phenomenon showcases still the implied inferiority of an African American presence/culture.
I really like the question you posed about the reading, and I think it’s a critical one for understanding the relationship between Sofia and Abuelita/Bashirrah as well as the different ways in which individuals interact with racially charged matters. In my understanding of Shange’s recollection, it appears that Abuelita challenges these notions bluntly and head-on while Sofia decides to disengage from the subject, mainly embedding the presence of Africa into her lesson plans (for example, Sofia was able to use “valuable curricular time on the history of Africans in Mexico and screening the Spanish-language film ‘Sugar'” (Shange, 2019: 62)). Through this particular approach, Sofia acknowledges the presence of the African diaspora in areas that are not generally thought to contain this population whilst also not being forthright in her approach. Abuelita, on the other hand, does not beat around the bush nor shy away from talking about these issues and calling them what they are, thus asserting Blackness as not merely a passive existence but an active present. This, to me, was most evident in her conversation with her peers about who can and cannot claim the n-word as well as her satirical remarks on slavery that overtly upset Sofia. Both of their approaches appear to have the same goal of recognizing Blackness within this country, but simply have vastly different methodologies within them.