Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara

by Thabiti Lewis (Editor), Toni Cade Bambara

Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara reveals an artist and activist whose work deftly negotiates boundaries of feminism, nationalism, and film. The intimacy of these collaborations or conversations between Bambara (1939-1995) and her interviewers provides an excellent and necessary resource for those interested in scholarly approaches to her fiction, especially her novels The Salt Eaters and the posthumously published Those Bones Are Not My Child , and her acclaimed short story collection Gorilla, My Love . The collection reveals the passion, humor, and real-life experiences of the woman who through her editing of the groundbreaking anthology of black women's writing The Black Woman and contributions to the documentary W. E. B. Du A Biography in Four Voices changed perceptions of African American culture in the modern era.

The interviews present a woman who saw herself as “a teacher who writes, a social worker who writes, a youth worker who writes, a mother who writes.” Bambara viewed herself as a cultural worker for oppressed people whose job as an artist was making, in her words, “revolution irresistible.” Indeed, her fiction champions the working class and “average folk,” both of whom she felt were made invisible by mainstream American society.

The volume also displays Bambara's passionate criticism of radicalism and revolutionary philosophies that were structured by patriarchal, sexist, and heterosexual-centric paradigms. Her willingness to challenge her own ideals, as well as those that conflicted with them, marks her as one of the most forceful black writers of her era.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Memoir, Feminism

178 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2012

Reviews

[S.]

She talks about being multilingual--knowing how to write for kids in the hood, factory workers, ladies in beauty parlors and hustlers and also knowing how to write and understand the scholars, the academics, and the "mythmakers" in power to "tell the truth." Mostly, the kind of writing I've aspired to my whole life, whether I was writing as a journalist or just writing for myself.

It's true that I have one of her earlier works tattooed on my arm. Her view is everything to me. She was an amazing writer, well-read and curious, but mostly writing for self and not for fame, but because she had a desire to share and tell the truth.

[Jacob Wren]

Some passages from Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara:

*

Once again, I’m exploring ways to link up our warriors and our medicine people, hoping some readers will fling the book down, sneer at my ineptitude, and go on out there and show how it’s supposed to be done.

*

I start with the recognition that we are at war, and that war is not simply a hot debate between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp over which economic/political/social arrangement will have hegemony in the world. It’s not just the battle over turf and who has the right to utilize resources for whomsoever’s benefit. The war is also being fought over the truth: what is the truth about human nature, about the human potential? My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family, and the human family is to try to tell the truth. That ain’t easy. There are so few truth-speaking traditions in this society in which the myth of “Western civilization” has claimed the allegiance of so many. We have rarely been encouraged and equipped to appreciate the fact that the truth works, that it releases the Spirit, and that it is a joyous thing.

*

Read a lot and hit the streets. A writer who doesn’t keep up with what’s out there ain’t going to be out there.

*

There was something before colonialism and there is something that persists in spite of it. It’s that core that interests me. Colonialism was just a moment in our history. It’s a very temporary thing.

*

When I look at my work at any little distance the two characteristics that jump out at me is this tremendous capacity for laughter but also a tremendous capacity for rage. And the rage is usually about the almost gratuitous injustice that people have to deal with.

*

You asked me earlier about sources with stories. That story “Broken Field Running” came about because I was doing an essay on environmental design and urban design, particularly architecture and noticing the way in which kitchens got legislated out of existence. This meant if kitchens were the headquarters of the elders and if you no longer had kitchens you didn’t have your elders in your house anymore. Also, benches were removed from in front of low-income projects. If you don’t have benches you don’t have places for mom and pop Johnson to sit down or the old guys to play cards or dominos and drink beer and keep surveillance of the turf and develop some sense of community sovereignty because they’re out there.

The first group to go are the elders; you put them in old age homes and forgot about them, then you cut off your critical tie with the past.

*

The anger, dismay, disappointment, or just sheer bewilderment that many women experience as a way of life in regard to the man-woman setup is something we’re all going to have to get used to airing. Women are not going to shut up. We care too much, I think, about the development of ourselves and our brothers, fathers, lovers, sons, to negotiate a bogus peace.

[ez]

i can only aspire to write like this one day

[Mattieas Tien Yong Wan]

A collection of interviews and pretty interesting historical archive/pseudo biography of a woman who doesn't respect biographies. I find the way she thinks, talks and conceptualizes things incredibly resonant and inspiring. Someone who lived the way I want to live. Who values the things I value. It's hard to describe exactly how potent this book feels of wisdom and how casually Bambara talks about them, without getting into the weeds. And I don't feel like writing about the weeds right now. Anyways. Very inspiring person to me