Black Women Singing

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Images of black women singing at national events demonstrates the way that the black women’s voice can be called upon to heal a crisis as well as provoke one. The voice and the image of the black woman singing has often been used to suggest a peacefully interracial version of America which pulls together and helps heal national rifts; showing the black women to be the nurturer, healer, life and love giver for the majority culture . This singing offers an alternative version of a more inclusive America. This “muse” invokes the image of the mother of the nation, a woman who is holding the nation together. However, black women can make no claims on the family unit. She serves the unit, she heals and nurtures it but has no rights or privileges within it. Numerous texts that speak to the black women’s voices or representations of black women’s voice not only soothing white children to sleep, but also healing, nurturing, and sustaining black people. These voice create an …show more content…
The space is simultaneously political, spiritual, and sensual.
The descriptions of the female black voice as a “rud noyse, a strong nasal sound, or very loud and shrill” assert the unfamiliarity of the voice, the otherness of it. The black voice is part of the black body, the black body was deemed the very antithesis of all that was white and therefore human. This notion of otherworldliness is not a new concept. Female slaves were told of keeping audiences spellbound with their ancient tales; with the tone of the voice, its inflections, its register, the cadence, the pauses and silences. In the context of otherworldliness, the sound which is not captured is represented by an artist in poetry, prose and music. most

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