October 2020: Black is the Body (Bernard)

Post date: Nov 22, 2020 10:37:54 PM

Last month, sixteen of us gathered on-line to discuss Emily Bernard’s book Black is The Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine. Dr. Bernard is a professor at the University of Vermont, where she teaches courses in American and African American literature, critical race and ethnic theory, and women studies. Before taking this position, she taught briefly at Smith College, where Nancy Bucy, a member of our book club, took one of her courses on the Harlem Renaissance. Deeply impressed by the course, Nancy eagerly read Bernard’s book when it came out, and recommended it to our group.

Although Dr. Bernard is an award-winning scholar, Black is the Body is not an academic work. It is a collection of twelve, deeply personal, autobiographical essays. The collection begins with an essay on a traumatic and shocking incident that inspired her writings. In 1994, Bernard was in a café near her graduate program at Yale when she and several other patrons were viciously attacked by a knife wielding white man. Stabbed in the stomach, the damage from the attack lingered for years, requiring several surgeries. While recovering from one of these surgeries in 2001, a friend visited her in the hospital and suggested that she should write about her experiences. The friend proposed that her body was speaking to her, telling her “that it was time to face down the fear that had kept [her] from telling the story of the stabbing, as well as other stories that [she] needed to tell.”

In response, Bernard began to write a series of essays. Recognizing that she was not yet ready to discuss the stabbing, she reflected on her experiences as an African American woman teaching race theory in Vermont, one of the whitest regions in America. She explored stories about growing up in the American south, her own stories and those of her mother and grandmother. She reflected on her interracial marriage to her Italian American husband, and how her marriage has, and has not, been accepted by her family and her community. She described the challenging and infinitely rewarding process of adopting their two daughters from Ethiopia. Eventually, she found the strength and perspective required to write about the attack in the coffee shop.

Although some of the material had been published before in magazines, she gathered twelve of these essays together to form Black is the Body. The result is a moving and insightful reflection on the realities of race in America told from one woman’s unique perspective. Bernard declares that the essays in the book were “born in a struggle to find a language that would capture the totality of my experience, as a woman, a black American, a teacher, writer, mother, wife and daughter.” She wanted “to contribute something to the American racial drama besides the enduring narrative of black innocence and white guilt.” She wanted to explore “blackness at its borders, where it meets whiteness, in fear and hope, in anguish and love.” This is not to say that she downplays the dangers and harms of racism in America. In fact, she comes to see her stabbing as “a metaphor for the violent encounter that has generally characterized American race relations.” However, she recognizes the healing potential in sharing her stories and those of the people she loves. She writes:

“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges sometimes randomly and unpredictably in life as I have lived it. It is inconsistent, continuously in flux, and yet also a constant condition that I carry in my body. It is a condition that encompasses beauty, misery, wonder, and opportunity. In its inherent contradictions, utter mysteries, and bottomlessness as a reservoir of narratives, race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.”

Everyone in the group enjoyed the book. Some of us were a bit worried at first by the amount of violence and trauma in the opening essay about the knife attack. However, we were quickly impressed by Bernard’s ability to discuss even the most harrowing events with grace and insightfulness. We were astounded, for example, by the amount of understanding she showed for her attacker.

Overall, Bernard’s light touch and positive tone made the book inviting and enjoyable to read, even though she discusses serious events that trigger strong emotional reactions. A few of us were a little uncomfortable with the way she handled a class-room discussion of the use of the ‘n-word,’ however, we could see why she is such an effective and provocative educator. We discussed who the target audience of the book might be and noted how certain incidents described in the book poignantly highlighted the legacy of segregation and the enduring presence of racial prejudice in America. For example, we were all struck by a story about a flat tire on the way a family reunion in Mississippi. Bernard’s white husband immediately pulled the car over and changed the tire, much to the wonder and discomfort of Bernard and her parents. In much of America, African Americans are still too vulnerable to feel safe on the side of the road, and they choose their stopping places with more care. “Somewhere between the clarity of [my husband’s] focus and the complexity of my father's anxiety, perhaps, lies the difference between living white and living black in America,” Bernard writes, “I see the difference. Mostly I despise it. But my belief that difference can engender pleasure as well as pain made it possible for me to marry a white man.”

Considering the subject matter, I suppose one could criticize the book for not being more difficult and challenging. Certainly, many of the issues that the book raises call for remedy and response, and a higher amount of discomfort might be more effective at prompting this positive action. However, I think there is a lot to be said for Bernard’s even tone and philosophical approach. Again and again, Bernard shows a talent for seeing the humanity in herself and others, even while recognizing the complexity of the human condition and our propensity for mistakes and misunderstandings. As I read, I found myself feeling deeply akin to Bernard, even as she described ways in which her experience in America is different from mine. Perhaps, this delicate balance between connecting with others while confronting and, even, embracing difference, represents some of the book’s greatest healing potential. Bernard is right, storytelling can open old wounds, but it can also be the salve that begins to heal them.