PJCC Multicultural Voices ELA course discussion

No apology. I’m reminded of something from Toni Morrison that I read years ago after I’d read Beloved—a book that transformed my understanding of African-American history and my understanding of the power of fiction to communicate what facts, statistics, and dates alone cannot. Morrison said she wanted to write without explaining things to white readers, that she wanted to write without apology, that she was writing to and for an African-American audience. Thompson-Spires continues that effort in this collection.

But also, of course, “no apology” has more than one interpretation. It speaks to how little has ever gone in the other direction—from white to black—for the hundreds of years of slavery, for mass incarcerations, for the lack of justice for unlawful shootings/killings of black citizens. In the opening story, anger simmers in the subtext of the fancy sketches; it rises through the two chalk outlines, and spills over in the final paragraph:

“But I couldn’t draw the bodies while the heads talked over me, and the mosaic formed in blood, and what is a sketch but a chalk outline done in pencil or words? And what is a black network narrative but the story of one degree of separation, of sketching the same pain over and over, wading through so much flesh trying to draw new conclusions, knowing that wishing would not make them so?”

Heads of the Colored PeopleThere is a clear anger here from the voice of the character about the rampant destruction of black lives from white police, but also there is anger between the two black main characters that also spills into violence. What is the legacy of white on black violence and black on black violence within the African-American society? Why does this violence go unabaited and seemingly unnoticed by blacks and whites within that world?

The author seems to understand that Americans whether black or white have learned to be immune to systemic violence. She wishes like the character Penny she could just wish it away, and the violence of white police officers on black citizens and black on black crime would disappear. The legacy is that these killings and police brutality are cyclic in nature and there seems to be no end. The author doesn't seem to believe there is an answer to systemic violence on and between blacks in America. The fact that the author, Nafissa Thompson-Spires doesn't even take the time in the novel to explain exactly how Riley and Brother Man exchanged violent blows and how the police shot them both indicates she doesn't need to explain. Her African-American readers and really all groups in America already know what the outcomes will be; what's left is chalk lines and yellow police tape around the victims. No need for her as a young African-American writers to apologize for her anger or not illustrating the crimes between the two characters or the police on Brother Man and Riley. The outcomes are preordained, and that's the disturbing part of this story is that the ending is already known, so why write about it? That's the tragedy in this short story.

In the story with Riley and Brother Man, I think the author is really trying to show how everyday conflicts can escalate into tragedy, especially within marginalized communities. The way both characters end up dead after what started as a small confrontation feels shocking but also sadly familiar, given how violence sometimes erupts over things that seem minor at first. I noticed that the author doesn’t just focus on the event itself, but also on how people react to it—like the media coverage and the way others talk about the incident afterward. It made me think about how society often reduces complex individuals to headlines or stereotypes, instead of seeing them as real people with their own stories. Overall, the tragedy in the story seems to be not just about the deaths themselves, but about how easily people get lost in the noise and how quickly lives can be changed forever.

Well thought out analysis to the question on why does this ongoing tragic systemic violence go on without much analysis. I believe is well put that television and internet media is much about painting broad strokes on marginalized groups in the United States rather than have genuine and deep digging journalism on what are the root causes for these problems. You are right on mark that small things like how Brother Man was not acknowledged by Riley resulted in a resentment that ended up in senseless violence between. Even worse, the police's only answer to said violence amongst Riley and BrotherMan was to shoot them dead. The shoot first and ask questions later is part-n-parcel of the experience of any minority community.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree that the media often fails to address the deeper issues behind systemic violence, focusing instead on surface-level narratives. It’s crucial to look beyond stereotypes and really examine the root causes if we want to see meaningful change in our communities.