The 'process notes' pieces were originally solicited by Maw Shein Win as addendum to her teaching particular poems and poetry collections for various workshops and classes. This process note and poems by Karla Brundage are part of her curriculum for her upcoming class for Maker, Mentor, Muse and for her poetry classes at the University of San Francisco. Thanks for reading.
Each of us finds ways to process our generational trauma. I began writing these Blood Lies in college, but perhaps did know I was writing it yet. The idea of Race Trait(or) was an insidious nagging that continues to plague me, as I am always wondering about what makes one enough, and to the point, what makes one Black enough or white enough to be considered?
While taking a course on Brazilian culture, one of the readings included a list of all the legal terms encoded into the laws of governance. The list included at least 50 categories of heritage and “blood” mixtures, some examples being mestizo, pardo, and mulatto. This caused me to wonder about categories and categorization of people.
As I was writing this book, the main idea I was trying to interrogate was that of mixing and sorting. As more and more genetic information is read, shared and categorized, beliefs on blood purity are questioned. I wanted to examine this, and because I had a personal connection to the word Mulatto, I decided to start there.
Growing up, until the political shift in the 90’s with conflation of the multi-cultural movement and hip hop, the most common question I was asked and had to answer was: “What are you?” As a result of being asked this question several hundreds of times by friends, strangers, acquaintances and teachers alike, I began to discern that this was a very important and significant question. What was I after all? I was not Black or White? Was I anything? I began to say I am ½ Black and ½ White. This is the definition of Mulatto.
A poet and a skeptic, I did not go to science for the answer, I went to the dictionary. I was not looking for an equation but a definition or category for my own body. What I discovered was math.
These poems are then, the multiplication of multicultural and multiple subject ideas. They are equations.
Due to the complexities, my inquiry into math became algebra which led me to form theorems. This was the second form of poem, the “if, then” poem.
From this question, developed a second question. If I am mulatto, how far back in my history would I need to go to start measuring the halves? I already knew from family lore that those on the Black side of my family could claim mixed ancestry whether from intermixing with Native Americans or from the legacy of rape endured and perpetrated when my ancestors were enslaved. But due to the one-drop rule, my Black family only claimed Black.
This led to the question about dilution and condensation. If one’s blood can be diluted, can it also be recondensed? Is it possible to work towards “purity” once again?
The point of Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) seems to have evolved. It started off as a way to example the connection/relationship between racial violence against women (specifically Black women) and victimhood. But also to examine the idea of predator. A large theme of this book is betrayal which and also can be seen as enlightenment. What if all one believes is not as was expected? Is this betrayal or enlightenment? The cover image is a veil being lifted which is in homage to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man which was set in Tuskegee, Alabama. My mother’s side of the family is from Tuskegee, as was my second cousin Sammy Young Jr. He was shot and killed for using a Whites Only Bathroom. The generational trauma caused by his death is the topic of two of the poems in this book.
The book is dedicated to the State of Alabama whose anti-miscegenation laws directly impacted my fate.
The idea of examining the root of the word “mulatto” was an excavation of an obsession I had. Whereby at 17 I had a pre-determined concept of my sexual value as a commodity to be traded, and this led to my being the victim of sexual violence at a young age.
I felt that this exotic presentation of my physiognomy could be bartered, but from where did that concept arise?
While growing up in Hawaii, a direct reaction of my parents to the threats of violence they faced as a mixed race couple in the 60’s, I was isolated from any construction of self-concept. I began to inherently know that to be mulatto meant to be available for sex trade, to be placed on an open market, historically speaking.
I learned later that historically women of my skin tone and hue bartered our skin tone for more comfortable lives closer to the Big House which left us alienated from our community of Black women of darker shades. I think upon reflecting on how some women chose to use this desirability of light skin to their advantage and to save themselves from further victimhood is when the idea of being a traitor, or trader evolved.
The discovery of the term mulatto at a young age, accompanied by various blood quantum associations, such as quadroon and octoroon only complicated the idea of definition.
This also led me to integrate into my childhood thinking the aspiration to whiteness/light and moving away from Blackness/darkness as is reaffirmed Biblically (note The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison) and has been discussed by many scholars, writers, and religious figures.
It was through examining these definitions that my experiences began to connect phonetically. I could hear echoes of these terms in my personal history as if whispered. The poems came from the etymology of the words in the book.
Both, And
Mulatto:
of mixed breed
young mule
a half-ass.
Of mixed race
two segregated
halves of privilege and want.
Socially acceptable and degraded.
Mulatta: feminine
Kept in the Big
House for breeding: Mulatress
irrevocably
composite, hysterical and rigid,
so called-black
and so-called white.
Old English: Sunderboren "born of disparate parents."
Related Entries: Mule
Quadroon
(noun)
1707, "offspring of a white and a mulatto," from Spanish cuarteron (used chiefly of the offspring of a European and a mestizo), literally "one who has a fourth" (Negro blood), from cuarto "fourth," from Latin quartus (see quart ), so called because he or she has one quarter African blood. Altered by influence of words in quadr-.
This
can be explained as having one Negro grandparent
or
two grandparents who were octoroons
but
who’s counting?
America
is counting...
counting
slaves, counting bodies
counting
profit
counting
drops and one drop counts
One
Drop of African blood
makes
you legally a Negro in 1707
Constitutes three fourths a man.
Octoroon
(Definition in Process)
Grandpa
is a Black Indian.
His
parents 14th Amendment certified
full persons
Black
Indians: 1/2 Native American and ½ Black
So
if grandpa’s parents were Powhatan and Black
Grandma is building back the black blood
Are
you mulatto?
Then
you marry Black
Are
your children are ¾?
but
the word is now African American.
Then
maybe they marry out
division
causes erasure
lines
in my math
grey
smudge in ivory parchment
my
theory no longer a proof.
Poems reprinted with permission of Finishing Line Press.
Karla Brundage is a poet, editor, essayist, teacher, and beach lover. A recipient of a Fulbright Teacher Exchange, she spent a year teaching in Zimbabwe and three years in Cote d'Ivoire where she founded West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange. Along with her newest publication, Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), she is author of two books, Swallowing Watermelons and Mulatta- Not so Tragic co-authored with Allison Francis. She has performed her work onstage and online, both nationally and internationally. Her poetry, short stories and essays can be found in Essential Truths, Multi-America, Konch, Hip Mama, sPARKLE & bLINK, Bamboo Ridge, Vibe. In 2020, her poem Alabama Dirt was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Check out her latest projects at http://westoaklandtowestafrica.com/ as well as on https://www.karlabrundage.com/.
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Maw Shein Win’s most recent poetry collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn) which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA’s Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. Win’s previous collections include Invisible Gifts (Manic D Press) and two chapbooks: Ruins of a glittering palace (SPA) and Score and Bone (Nomadic Press). Win’s Process Note Series features poets and their process. She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA and teaches poetry in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco. Win often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers and was recently selected as a 2023 YBCA 100 Honoree. Along with Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a new literary community. mawsheinwin.com
