Sula (No Other Title Necessary)
Sula (No Other Title Necessary)
Last year one of my political science professors was talking about the 2004 presidential election. He mentioned that in a debate between the two VPs (Cheney and Edwards), the two were asked a question about the number of black women in America getting infected with AIDS every year. As my professor said, the two old white men knew nothing. My professor also said that African-Americans encounter enough institutional racism to last till the end of time, but African-American women have an especially hard time in politics — they are the “minoritiest” of all minorities: Not only are they women, but they are black women to boot! Had AIDS in 2004 been a problem for white men, it would make headlines; had it been a grave danger to white women, it would have been a big deal too. AIDS for black men? A little bit less so. As for black women — well, it’s off the radar!
I remembered all this as I opened Sula, a novel about, according to its back cover, ” what it means and costs to be a black woman in America.” But as I read it, I forgot about political inequity, racism, and that 2004 debate; I was captured by the story Toni Morrison so magnificently weaves for the readers. Although Sula is certainly about two women, and two women who are black, it’s also a story about two little girls growing up, painfully so, in a bright, beautiful, alarming, amusing world. A world that just happens to be populated mostly by black people (and an unfortunate collection of nasty white people).
“Just happens” — that is, until the novel brings us back to a grown-up Sula, college-educated, beautiful, and dangerously naive Sula. And then the color of her skin is important — but more important is her gender. Then it’s the 2004 election debate all over gain: Shame on you, Sula, for being black; shame on you even more so for daring to be a woman!
Sula was trouble because she took what she wanted, without any thought for consequences. She violated the moral codes of her community — and she was a women, governed by the expectations of her community for her gender, who did it.
Tags: gender roles, HIV/AIDS, politics, race
