Chapter 9: (Re)Righting The Script: Speaking Back to Public Curriculum to Secure a More Humanizing Citizenship for African American Women and Girls

I recently read a novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, entitled Wench: A Novel (2010). It is a historical fiction about four Black women who are taken as concubines by their slave masters during the mid-19th century. Each of the women struggle with being forced into sexual relationships with their masters and having to live their lives ostracized from both the White and Black communities as a result of their unwanted positions. They also struggle with the reality that their own needs, dreams, and aspirations were second to the desires of their masters, who claim to love them. One of the main characters, Lizzie, who is “more humanely” forced into being a concubine by her master, Drayle, has a difficult time making sense of her ambiguous relationship. Lizzie believes that she and Drayle have a genuinely loving relationship but her position is always very uncertain. Drayle does not hesitate to beat Lizzie when she does something he dislikes; he does not hesitate to chain her up when he fears her escaping; and he does not hesitate to rape her when his desires get the best of his otherwise genteel nature. Lizzie lives her life precariously perched on a line between human and animal, as people, including her beloved Drayle, define her very worth in terms of body parts.