In Maya Angelou’s fictional autobiography titled ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ the protagonist Maya and other characters constantly experience intersectional oppressions throughout the narrative that they face and have to navigate through. The title is befitting how Maya feels during the majority of the autobiography. The caged bird is a metaphor of how Maya felt trapped and confined by oppression, beauty standards and racism that surrounded her life but the bird sings in hope of freedom. One primary character that played a prominent role in Maya`s upbringing was her grandmother Annie Henderson which Maya referred to as Momma.
At the age of 3 Maya and her eldest brother were sent by their divorcing parents to go live with their paternal grandma “momma” in Stamps, Arkansas in the 1930s. The small town was heavily segregated, completely dividing whites and blacks from one another. The area was so segregated that as child Maya believed that white people didn’t really exist because of the surroundings she lived in and how segregated the area was. “Most black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites look like. We knew only that they were different, to be feared” (Angelou, V).
Momma owned the only black store in the black community of Stamps, Arkansas. The store was the glue that held the community together. It was a place where everyone, all the workers came and gathered to eat, rest, and congregate. Mommas store symbolized the rewards of all the residents’ hard work and how loyal momma was to the laborers and them to her. Momma was a well-respected resident in the black community. Older black women, like momma, are looked at to have a lot of wisdom. People look up to them. She is an example of how black women are the pillars of black communities and also their family.
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Not only did Maya, her brother, and disabled uncle relied on Momma to protect and provide for them, but so did the residents of the community. She provided them with whatever they needed from her store, and also there is a part in the story where one man ran to Momma for shelter from the police. When the man was captured by the police officers and brought to court he was questioned about his whereabouts ‘he replied that after he heard that he was being sought he hid in Mrs. Henderson’s Store” (Angelou, 18). This made her seem to be of a higher class, and more official because of her confused elevated status in the thoughts of those who lived in the black community. The judge was unaware that momma was black when he subpoenaed her, and therefore referred to her as “Ms. Henderson”.
When the judge and people of the court actually saw Momma they laughed at the judge’s mistake of calling a black women Mrs. but didn’t expect a black woman to own a store. Although the court humiliated Momma, Maya stated: ‘Negroes thought it proved the worth and honor of my grandmother” (Angelou, 18). Momma was not only a store owner which wasn’t a normal occupation for a black woman during that time but she also owned property that she rented to the poor class whites. Although the whites she rented out to were poorer than her and of a lower class, they still treated her like a servant because of her race. No matter the fact that they had to pay her for a place to live, there was still no respect shown to Momma because of her skin color, the little white girls of the tenants were especially rude.
One summer day the white tenant’s children came skipping to antagonize and mock Momma on her own yard. Momma didn’t even acknowledge the disgusting behavior from the kids, she just sang quietly. She stands up for herself respectfully by not giving into the white kids torment but also holds a fear inside of her because ‘she didn’t agree with the idea that white folks could be talked to at all without risking one`s life. And certainly, they couldn’t be spoken to impudently (17)’. Momma considered herself to be a realist when it came to race relations. She teaches Maya how to act around whites.
For Maya to choose what she says, how she shows emotions and the battles she chooses wisely. It’s sad that people have to teach children to act a certain way to people based on race. This also relates to the present time`s where a lot of parents have to teach their kids police etiquette especially black kids interacting with white cops. What also helped Momma stay calm in the situation with the poor white girls was her faith. Momma is firm in her Christian values and teaching. No matter what happens to her she believes to turn to god. Religion is very important and prevalent in black communities around the world, and in the book.
In the book’s holy places such as church or revival tent, they focused on what’s going on in the community and inequalities, justice and persecution and kept their faith and god and prayed for things to get better. Reverend DeForest states “One of the most significant factors that contributed to black success and survival has been our faith in God. The manifestation of that faith is the religious community, which consists mostly of Christian churches that have produced positive spiritual, social, economic and political results for black America” (Soaries 1).
Bringing the focus to Maya, in the prologue of the book Maya talks about how she had to wear an unappealing taffeta dress to an Easter Sunday service. At first, she adored the idea of the dress but then came to believe the dress to be a hand me down from a white girl and despised it. She considered herself to be in a “black ugly dream” one that she wanted to get out of. Maya identified being pretty as being white and blond. She would’ve preferred to be white with light hair instead of how she saw herself of which was a big ugly black girl. She referred to her hair as a “kinky mass”. She didn’t look like the other children or at least felt she didn’t. Colorism is a big issue within the black community and has been shown to be apparent throughout the years.
‘In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens, Alice Walker defined colorism as ‘prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.’ Light-skin preference had been common practice in the black community for generations, but Walker gave it a name and marked it as an evil that must be stopped in order for African Americans to progress as a people’ (Tharpes,1). Society makes young black girls hate themselves and their appearance because of media and what is portrayed as pretty. Maya obviously dealt with issues within herself such as self-hate and colorism.
At the Easter service, Maya was supposed to recite a poem. While trying to recite the poem she stumbled and stopped after the ‘I didn’t come to stay’ line. ‘The truth of the statement was like a wet handkerchief crushed in my firsts’ (Angelou, 1). The line resonated with Maya because that’s what she felt, displacement. She felt a continuous sense of temporariness. When her parents were divorcing and decided to send Maya and her brother off to live with Momma at tender ages that were Maya first experience with abandonment. She felt displaced and unwanted first by her parents.
Making her feel that she came from nowhere. Not only did she feel displaced by her family but also by peers and society. She didn’t feel that she belonged anywhere and couldn’t see herself belonging to anyone or anything. That was the ‘unnecessary insult’ she spoke of. Overwhelmed with emotions after being humiliated and tripped in front of the congregation, she ran in tears to the back of the church to use the bathroom but didn’t make it in time and released herself: physically by pee’ing on herself and emotionally by eventually laughing thankful for the “sweet release”.
In ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ Maya and the other characters in her fictional autobiography constantly are battling new intersectional oppressions. The book`s foundation race issues such as segregation, and racism. Class issues were shown when the tenants that Momma rented out to disrespected her because of her race even though they were a part of a poorer class than her.
The judge not believing that a black woman could own a store played into work issues. The language that the characters used was decided off which race they were speaking to. Religion played a huge part in the black community Maya lived in when she lived with Momma. The place that Maya lived in was also different from that of the white side of the area in Stamps. The book did an outstanding job portraying the many oppressions that Maya and the other characters faced.
Bibliography
- Tharps, Lori L. “The Difference Between Racism and Colorism.” Time, Time, 6 Oct. 2016, time.com/4512430/colorism-in-america/.
- Soaries, Rev. DeForest. “Black Churches and the Role of Empowerment.” CNN, Cable News Network, 1 Aug. 2010, www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/01/soaries.black.church/index.html.
- Angelou, Maya. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. New York: Random House, ©1969.
