A guest post by Bestman Michael Osemudiamen on Oluwatunmise Esther’s poem ‘Negritude’
The first time I met Negritude Philosophy, I was still in high school. Then, I came across
Léopold Sédar Senghor’s “I will pronounce your name”— a part of the WAEC literature syllabus
for 2007. At that point, I was a little unclear about its historical fermentation. I had read it and
rewrote it for a girl I admired— my first unconscious attempt at poetry. Senghor’s poem centred
around a black female character “Naett”— a re-emphasis of the African identity as doting to any
observer. Now, it is 2022— five years after. And, history has grown: there is my strive for
clarity, consciousness, and the human voice in every piece I encounter. And having heard Brainy
(Oluwatunmise Esther), for the first time, read her poem “Negritude”, that night at Sage Hassan’s
reading birthday party, I was critically attached.
Three things had happened: while she read, I was unclear about how she had thematically woven
the god, woman, and identity questions in such a brief performance on such a broad title as
Negritude. I needed a feel, so I asked for a hard copy, and here I am much concerned about how
we push history and ideas through time: how do we reopen, define, or redefine the relevance of
Negritude in the 21st Century of globalization and imperialism? The answer is barely linear— a
cartography of debates. Something I hope to write about someday. However, Brainy’s title becomes the past, present, and future merged into a glance: “Negritude”— a movement towards reawakening black consciousness both in Africa and in the diaspora.
In stanza one, the reader meets an exposition— the link to the philosophical stance of the title
itself: “let’s talk”. This expression, repeated at the beginning of the first three lines, is the
foundation upon which the subject matters are raised: the experiences to be shared by two
gender-unspecified poet personae “you” and “me”, towards the “dazzling skin colour seen as
threat” and “about being black”. It is only from stanza 2 do we see the identities behind those
unspecified pronouns: “black woman”— a resonance of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s “Black
Woman”. Here, Brainy’s feminine metaphor may or may not necessarily be an address to a
woman after all. It could encompass the gendered persona and make the subject African. But,
gradually into line 6 of this stanza, we are left at a crossroad: “I know you’re clueless of what
classic/creation of God you are, moulded from the finest clay”. Now, I was forced to pause and
ponder:
- If “God” there refers to the image of the woman, like the black woman not knowing she’s a
classic creation, there won’t be a need for her to be moulded from clay as both God and Woman
are one and creators. Thus, no one is clay— as a creator cannot be the clay: he/she/it is outside
the subject of creation. - If “God” should be separate from the black woman, that is, the woman as a creature and the
“God” as a creator, it becomes a little ambiguous. What God is creating what woman? Is it the
Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Christian, or Islam God? That is, does it subtly deny the multiplicity of the
African deities? Why does she have to be created when in the preceding lines, lines 3–5, we are
told she should not see herself as less of a goddess: “black woman…/you’ve [been] told that being
black makes you less of a woman, makes you less of a goddess.”
And 3: if the black woman is a goddess, created by a “God”, does that not make her less? A
contradiction to the thematic relevance raised earlier about not being less of a woman or less of a
goddess. And, if this is the case, the “black woman” is merely subjected to a patriarchal order
where “God” or “Men” reign supreme— a devastating and biased history of things. A case, I am
sure, Merlin Stone’s “When God was a Woman”, Christena Cleveland’s “God is a Black
Woman”, and other radical feminists would not agree with. In fact, in prehistoric times, there
were goddesses before the making of gods. In pre colonialism, in Igbo culture, for example, we
had Ani, Ala— all of which are women and greater in all sense of the Igbo traditions. The
appearance of a Chukwu, with no clearly defined altar, was an attempt at the unification of other
personal or communal gods under a supreme being of the sky— a father figure, not a mother
figure as Ani possesses— modelled after patriarchy, economic factors, and possibly,
Christianisation. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is clear that the chief priestess was
never undermined— despite the toxic masculinity of Okonkwo, he submits. Also, after the
tragic death of Okonkwo, we notice how his impurities will not allow him to be buried under the
Earth Goddess, Ani. Not Chukwu. Why? Every deity is placed or created within the cultural,
occupational, and geographical nature of the people, which is mostly femininely defined— a
byproduct of human’s inability to understand natural phenomena. Hence, the Igbos worshipped
Ani or Ala as Earth Goddesses because the society tilts towards agriculture. In other places close
to the river, where fishing is a major occupation, we see the worship of a Sea Goddess, not a God— the representation of fertility, protection, and a means through which its people survive
like Olókun, Yemọja, Mami Wata, and so on. So, where do we or in what context do we place “I
know you’re clueless of what classic creation of God you are/moulded from the finest clay”?
Thus, it will be sad and a slap to African history if the “God”, here, refers subtly, unconsciously,
or generally, to the Abrahamic religions— a defeat to the philosophical and ideological purpose
of the title itself: Negritude.
However, before eurocentrism, the evolution of human societies has been classed between the
oppressors and the oppressed— Africa is not exempted. This means that while Brainy celebrates
womanhood, she fails to identify the class status of these women both in pre-colonial and post-
colonial Africa. That is, the image of a ruling Goddess (or god) is or may be structured after the
image, dominance, and ideology of the existing ruling class— women or men— in each epoch of
time: matriarchal (or patriarchal), matrilineal, feudal or not — black or white. Such is the reason
behind the birth of heaven or afterlife: the ruling class’s idea, both in the formation of customs,
tradition, and rituals, to preserve their reign over the lower classes forever— like the Egyptian
pyramids of preserved bodies of Kings and Queens; then, how Wole Soyinka, too, dramatically
presented this cosmological narrative through his “Death and the King’s Horseman”, where the
Eleshi was meant to die so he could accompany the king through the phases of the afterlife.
Aside from the God question, Brainy presents her women and Negritude from a point of skin— a
product of her reconstruction of beauty and identity: “This is a poem for every black woman still
cringing in her skin”, “Black woman/Tell everyone who cares to hear/ that your skin is a
constellation for starry nights”; her reflections on the Transatlantic Slave Trade: “poem for those shipped across the seas/ whose offsprings still bear the harsh tags placed on them”; and the
pathos of her past— a nostalgia: “They forget we are the wisp of air preceding the rise of a
storm”, “We black women come from a race of fighters”.
Beyond these revolutionary turns and eulogies, Brainy’s poem should be read with a critical eye:
- “making love to a black woman is riding on some good life”— Here, we are forced to ask:
does Brainy imply that good life is making love to a black woman? Is this relevant in the 21st-
century global worldview of humanism— maybe in the science of love-making? In fact, who
becomes the subject of that “making” in terms of her poem’s contextualisation? Does it not defile
the literal or metaphoric essence of her “black woman”? Or, does it not indirectly support the
exploitation of the black woman if making love with her is “riding on some good life”— that is,
if black woman, throughout, had metaphorically meant Africa? - “We are not some gruesome paintings of God”— earlier, Brainy had told us that her “black
woman” is a “classic creation of God, moulded from the finest clay”— this line, if we pay
attention to her earlier premises, does not achieve any effect at all as the women cannot and will
not be in, anyway, the “gruesome paintings” of God. Except, by “gruesome”, she challenges the
racial stereotypes and gender discrimination of the black woman just as how Buchi Emecheta
presented Adah in Second Class Citizen— women are humans, too. But, to accept this supposed
interpretation is to defeat the essence and perfection of Brainy’s “God” as these “gruesome”
paintings, wherever it comes or appears, are his— if the black women are not gruesome, who,
then, is or are the “gruesome paintings of God”? - “Tell them if God had a begotten daughter, she would be black”. While these lines achieved a
powerful plot effect, the “God” in Brainy’s “Negritude” is unveiled, defeated, and short-changed
after a model of masculine, maybe patriarchal, Christian doctrine, not the African religions.
In the end, Brainy’s poem and Negritude suffer from a post-colonial effect of indoctrination and
cultural imperialism while maintaining a strong appraisal of the women’s struggles and
movements in Africa and diaspora: “Black woman, I dare you to raise your heads and shoulders
high like the Queen you are/The Queen of Negritude”.
The 1919 Review 