bell hooks’ “Postmodern Blackness” critiques postmodernism for creating the idea that there is no single, collective black essence. hooks addresses the issue that there is little representation of black voices, and even less of female black voices, in postmodernism. She is critical of this lack of voice because postmodernism is rooted in the idea of diverse experiences; it usually emphasizes “‘Otherness and differences’” (hooks 2009), yet the majority of the postmodern authors are elite, white males. hooks wants to see African Americans acknowledge and accept their individuality so that they can separate themselves from the idea that all African Americans have the same identity and the same experiences. Alice Walker’s Everyday Use is a prime example of the type of writing that bell hooks is looking for, as not only is Walker an African American woman, her story has the type of individualism in writing that is the “‘otherness and differences’” that the postmodernist writers are attempting to achieve.
 

 
This statement made by hooks is directly pointing out the flaws within the postmodern writers and the lack of black authors, especially female ones. Alice Walker and her piece Everyday Use addresses these issues, as not only is Walker a black reader, but she is also an author and has been recognized for her writing. Everyday Use is a well-studied piece that creates conversation and has been examined in classrooms across the country as a tool for encouraging critical thinking. For example, in an upper division English course at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Everyday Use is a required reading that students are asked to use as a means to help them understand a form of criticism by attempting to apply the criticism to the story. Walker’s short story is also viewed with intellectual seriousness, as aspects of it have been debate by critics and character analyses written. Dee, one of the characters, who is the eldest daughter of the narrator, Mrs. Johnson, changes her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Joe Sarnowski’s argues that Dee, while seen as a rather negative character, is truly seeking corrective measures to fight against the oppression of African American culture. Another critic, Matthew Mullins, argues that the only reason Dee is disliked is because of Mrs. Johnson, Dee’s mother, and how she portrays her own daughter. Walker’s story sparks discussion as it has great depth, and the subtext can be, and is often, interpreted in many different ways.

hooks wishes to see African American writers break away from the idea of a singular black identity. She wants to see them “affirm multiple black identities, varied black experience[s]” (hooks 2012). Walker not only demonstrates a separation from the mass identity, but so do her characters within Everyday Use. Mrs. Johnson and her younger daughter, Maggie, are characterized by their experiences. Mrs. Johnson has “knocked a bull calf straight in the brain […] and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall” (Walker 1973), she was never educated, and helped save money to send Dee to school. Maggie survived a fire, with “scars down her arms and legs” (Walker) and learned to sew the quilts that her grandma had made, despite Maggie’s own wish to live like, and be like, her sister Dee.

The women of “Everyday Use” also demonstrate the idea of “nationalists” and “assimilationists” (hooks 2012) that hooks believes most postmodern African American rights groups fall within. Nationalists are those who value their history and heritage, while the assimilationists are those who wish to blend with the white American society and culture. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie demonstrate their nationalist qualities through their knowledge of how to sew grandma’s quilts. They value their culture and heritage enough to put in the time and effort to learn how to sew the quilts that are a part of their history, and they have also put to use the churn that Dee wishes to use for display only. Dee is portrayed as more of an assimilationist, as she dons her heritage as though it is something to display, rather than be. Dee wishes to acquire the churn and butter dish hand crafted by her relatives to use as pieces of decoration, along with her grandma’s quilts, which she wishes to hang on her walls. Despite this wish to preserve her heritage and culture, Dee has never bothered to learn how to make her grandma’s quilts like her sister Maggie, and she even accuses her mother of not comprehending the value of the quilts: “‘You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!’” (Walker 58).

Dee’s character prescribes to the type of person hooks often sees in the African American community, but doesn’t want the African American community to become. Dee attempts to hold onto her heritage and individuality, yet she goes about it in the wrong way and seemingly loses the heritage she is trying to protect. While Dee is educated, and often read to her mother and sister while in school, she would read of “other folks’ habits” (Walker) rather than focusing on her own history. She is not very proud of where she came from, going as far as “never [bringing] her friends” (Walker) home to her mother and sister. This is because she doesn’t like how or where her family chooses to live, demonstrating her shame in her heritage. Dee even chooses to change her name not being able to bear “being named after the people who oppress [her]” (Walker) despite the fact that she was actually named after her aunt. Thus, Dee places even more distance between herself and where she comes from.

Not only does Dee represent the postmodern idea that hooks wants African American’s to avoid, her character simultaneously personifies the postmodern writers that hooks is criticizing. hooks is critical that those writing of “‘Otherness and difference’” (hooks 2009) are not able to create a large enough impact to “change the nature and direction of postmodernist theory.” In their writings, they try to reach the “‘Otherness and difference’” (hooks), yet, in attempting to create such concepts, they usually steer their work further from their goal, much in the same manner Dee distances herself from her heritage when she attempts to preserve it. hooks knows that her fellow black authors, both women and men, have the ability to create the “‘Otherness and difference’” (hooks) but in order to be heard they must embrace the black experience, the individual black identity rather than the mass black identity. In an attempt to change postmodernism, hooks wants her fellow African Americans to think as those in the Black Power Movement, but with less of the essentialist mindset. If one can break away from the essentialist mindset then one will be “empowered to recognize multiple experiences of black identity that are the lived conditions which make diverse cultural productions possible” (hook 2012) and, in doing so, can alter the paradigms of black identity that “reinforce and sustain white supremacy” (hooks 2012).

Works Cited:
 
hooks, bell. “Postmodern blackness.” The critical tradition. 3rd ed., edited by David H. Richter, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007, pp. 2008-2013.

Mullins, Matthew. “Antagonized by the text, or it takes two to read Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’.” The comparatist, vol. 37, no. 1, 2013, pp. 37-53.

Sarnowski, Joe. "Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’.” Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature, vol. 48, no. 3, 2012, pp. 269–286.

Walker, Alice. “Everyday use.” In love and trouble. Harcourt, 2001, pp. 47-59.

Jolaine A.C. Polak received a Baccalaureate of Biological Sciences with a Minor in English in 2017.
This piece was selected by Professor Dan Kline.