Imagining Black Womanhood

The Negotiation of Power and Identity within the Girls Empowerment Project

Stephanie D. Sears

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781438433264, 9781438433271
• eBook ISBN: 9781438433288
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Imagining Black Womanhood illuminates the experiences of the women and girls of the Girls Empowerment Project, an Afrocentric, womanist, single sex after-school program located in one of the Bay Area's largest and most impoverished housing developments. Stephanie Sears carefully examines the stakes of the complex negotiations of Black womanhood for both the girls served by the project and for the women who staffed it. Rather than a multigenerational alliance committed to women's and girls' empowerment, the women and girls often appeared to struggle against each other, with the girls' "politics of respect" often in conflict with the staff's "politics of respectability, " a conflict especially highlighted in the public contexts of dance performances. This ground-breaking case study offers significant insights into practices of resistance, identity work, youth empowerment, cultural politics and organizational power.

1

Girls Empowerment Project

The potential of places like GEP … starting from when you're a child, when you know that there are successful Black women … that we contributed so much … and not only that that we're beautiful—that it's alright for us to be different shapes and shades and our hair to be different textures. And that's not what this society teaches. But if you have places like GEP where you see that, constantly see that and it's not in a negative light or it's not in something someone made up on television but it is something that is real. That's showing much love to me…. Places like GEP are necessary, definitely necessary, to excise white supremacy. Definitely necessary! … If I had GEP when I was that age, Lord have Mercy, I don't know where I would be right now. (Aisha, age twenty-four, program coordinator)

Recognizing the daily assaults on Black girls, GEP was created to be a place where girls and staff could challenge and confront representations and practices that limited and degraded the aspirations and lives of low-income Black girls. It was designed to be a social space where women and girls could work on themselves outside the “gaze” of dominant and indigenous groups and “go about the business of fashioning themselves” (O'Neale 1986, 139, as quoted in Collins 1991, 95). In this chapter, I describe GEP and the community in which it was located. I also detail my own involvement with the organization and the research process.

In the spring of 1991, Melinda George, the cofounder of Bay City's Women's Building and the city's first battered women's shelter, created the Girls Leadership Project. At this time Melinda, a well-known White feminist organizer and successful nonprofit program developer within Bay City's women's and philanthropic communities, secured a $50,000 planning grant to investigate the needs as well as resources available in Bay City for girls. In this formative stage, Melinda teamed up with Chris, an African American community activist known for representing the interests of low-income public housing residents. During this initial period, both women met with staff at numerous public and private agencies to ascertain what services were available as well as what was needed for girls. They also interviewed fifty-five girls to get their perspectives on what kinds of programming they liked and wanted (GEP 1992b, 7).

As part of this phase, the two women created an interim steering committee composed of a diverse group of community leaders, activists, youth workers, educators, social service providers, and public housing residents, who began to formulate plans for a leadership and self-esteem program for low-income girls. I was a part of this committee. We wrote:

We, the Girls Leadership Project, are developing a program for girls designed to attract and reach girls where they are, and provide leadership, self-esteem, empowerment, and economic development skills. It will be located on-site in a public housing development in Bay City and shaped by girls themselves, by women who work with girls, and by residents of the community. Because of the demographics of who is poor and at the highest risk in the city, the first program will be targeted primarily to African American girls and developed within a context of Afrocentric cultural values. (Women's Building 1992)

This committee, composed of eight African American women and two White women, eventually became GEP's Executive Management Committee. Over nine months, we met to create the Girls Empowerment Program (GEP): “A Program for Inner City Mothers of Tomorrow” (GEP 1992b, 1). It is hard to describe the excitement I felt as we worked to create GEP. I truly believed I was working to create deep change for and with women and girls I cared about. Once GEP opened, I transitioned into a member of the board of directors. In this role, I continued to work with other women to dream and envision an organization before heading off to graduate school.

GEP's first years were volatile. There were lawsuits, financial challenges, and struggles over space and the housing of the program, and within weeks of being hired, GEP's first executive director was let go. Despite these challenges, the program kept its promise to serve the girls of Sun Valley. At the time of this research, the agency had served at least 100 girls annually for thirteen years.¹

SUN VALLEY

Living in Sun Valley is great, once you get used to it. The bad thing about Sun Valley is that there are too many gangsters. (Tenda, GEP girl age twelve)

My experience with Sun Valley and some of the people has been frightening and at times hectic. Nowadays you can't be hanging out late without the fear of getting shot, raped, and even kidnapped. These things happen everywhere, but in a neighborhood such as mine, it is almost expected to happen, because bad things have always happened. I usually cry myself to sleep knowing when I wake up I will still be in Sun Valley, in the projects, in the ghetto, as usual. (Tracy, GEP girl age sixteen)

Living in Sun Valley feels nice, and I feel kind of safe. Some people around my neighborhood treat me well. Other people don't say anything to me. When there are drive-bys or when someone has a knife or when there is fighting, I don't feel safe. I stay inside when these things are happening, because I feel uncomfortable. If I could change anything about Sun Valley, I would try to ask everyone to help clean our community. I would ask people to plant flowers and have butterflies flying around. (Nikki, GEP girl age eleven)

I don't like Sun Valley. It's dirty, stanky, messy, dookie. It's difficult seeing drunk people and stuff—people robbing people and stuff. (Diamond, GEP girl age twelve)

It isn't that bad living in Sun Valley, because there is lots of loving in Sun Valley. There are people that give support and love in Sun Valley. (Portia, GEP girl age eleven)

During the summer of 1993, GEP opened its doors in Sun Valley, the largest of the forty-eight public housing developments in Bay City. Descending the hill into Sun Valley was like entering another world. Housed on forty-nine acres and home to approximately 2,000 residents, Sun Valley contained over 750 units, as compared to other public housing developments in the city, which ranged from fifty to 250 units. Nestled in a valley, the development contrasted sharply with the surrounding cities' row houses and apartments. Strangely, there was a sense of space here, endlessness in the midst of intense crowding.

Sun Valley was developed in 1940 as “Whites-only” transitional housing for young, working-class families in the postwar economy.² By the 1950s, the development was integrated, albeit segregated. That is, Whites lived in one section, Latinos in another, and African Americans in yet another (Peacock 1999). Between the 1950s and the 1970s, many small businesses were located along Sun Valley Avenue, the main corridor running through the development. According to local residents, however, the 1960s brought great changes to this neighborhood. The shift from a manufacturing to a service economy resulted in massive economic dislocations. Whites moved out. A “rougher” crowd moved in, and “drugs and purse snatching” became more prevalent (Peacock 1999).³ By the 1970s, small businesses had left the area due to robberies, fire, shoplifting, and vandalism.

Here in this urban landscape, race, class, and gender oppression converged, and they were often experienced as poverty, poor education, poor health, violence, and incarceration. For example, in 1993, the year GEP opened its doors, 46 percent of African American children lived in poverty or near poverty nationwide. Of this number, almost 10 percent lived in deep poverty, with family incomes 50 percent below the poverty line (Bennett 1995). These figures were mirrored within Bay City. For example, while only 10 percent of the city's overall population was African American, 64 percent of the youth residing in public housing were African American (SFHA 1992). In addition, Blacks in Bay City constituted 43.4 percent of the city's AFDC clients (SFDSS 1992).

Moreover, the growth of technology and internet industries in Silicon Valley further exacerbated the two-tiered labor divide in Bay City. These industries created a class of young professionals with large amounts of disposable income that transformed the economic and social character of Bay City. Between 1994 and 1996, the gap between the rich and the poor within Bay City increased by nearly 40 percent. This was the largest two-year increase in the twenty years covered by the survey (Zoll 1998). Housing prices soared, and many poor, working-class, and middle-class Black families were pushed out of their homes and into the streets or outside of Bay City to lower-rent, lower-mortgage communities. Between 1990 and 2000, Bay City's African American population dropped by 15 percent. This was the highest rate of decline found across the nation's fifty most populous cities (McCormick 2001). Many of those who did stay were residents of public housing that were too poor to move.

Adding to these economic realities, the triple impact of crack addiction, HIV infection, and imprisonment devastated many Black families. Children were orphaned and pushed into foster care systems, cared for by grandparents, or moved among various family members. According to The New York Times, at one urban middle school in Bay City, almost two-thirds of the students were newly orphaned, with 50 percent living with their grandparents (Navarro 1992). Many young people were forced to raise themselves, some joined “sets,” and some sold crack to support themselves and their families. ⁴

These were the realities of young girls in Sun Valley at the time that GEP was founded. During this period, Sun Valley was considered the most dangerous public housing development in Bay City. It had one of the highest rates of violence of any neighborhood in the city, averaging five to ten homicides a year (GEP 1992b). Most of the homicides and assaults were the result of drive-by shootings, characteristic of the crack trade. Throughout the neighborhood, abandoned cars dotted the parking lots. Trash lined the streets and covered the so-called “yards.” The air was filled with dirt and debris whipped up by the strong winds and lack of plant life to hold the soil. Makeshift memorials dedicated to fallen homies, fathers, sons, and brothers sprinkled the landscape.

Between 1993 and 2000, however, Sun Valley experienced many changes. GEP's administrative director, a former resident of Sun Valley, remarked:

I've seen Sun Valley go from the comfort zone in '67 to what they call the swamp, with no grass. It had drive-bys. It was not a good thing out here. I've seen the physical appearance go back to what it was in '67. I think some of it is the repercussions of what transpired in between the wars, the drive-bys, … the drug dealing … they have come a long way in cleaning the community, but I think it has left a scar, and I don't know if it will ever get back to where it was as a community, but it's getting better and I think a lot of it has to do with our girls. (Roxanne, age fifty-four)

Similarly, Kim, a resident of Sun Valley off and on for fourteen years, noted:

There used to be a lot of shooting, and driving up on sidewalks when the twins was [sic] little. When they were babies they'd be running from cars up on the sidewalks, playgrounds, police chasing. Now since they got the Beijings (local slang for Housing Authority's private security force) it's calmed down a bit, it's even better. They started looking better. (mother of GEP girls, age thirty-five)

Finally, sixteen-year-old Tracy reflected:

I see that Sun Valley has changed from a place where people were shooting bullets to a place where people are shooting out paint for the houses, grass for the lawns, and a remodeled home to live in. I like Sun Valley for these reasons and because it is a place where everyone knows each other. (GEP girl)

Sun Valley had indeed changed. The development's townhouses and apartments had been remodeled and given fresh coats of pastel paints. Grass covered what were once dirt yards. Sun Towers, a twenty-story twin tower structure that housed between 2,000 and 3,000 residents, was demolished and replaced by new low-income townhouses.

Most important, as both the adults and girls noted, the increase in both public and private security forces “calmed” Sun Valley “down a bit.” During this period, a new police substation was placed inside an apartment located at the center of the development. In addition, Bay City's Housing Authority implemented a controversial housing policy that evicted residents who were themselves drug dealers or who harbored known drug dealers. They also hired, “The Beijings,” a paramilitary-clad private security company to patrol the development. The result was that many of the young men, often the perpetrators and targets of the violence, were removed from the neighborhood via the new housing policy, incarceration, forced relocation for safety, and, in some cases, death.

Despite the decrease in violence, during the research period Sun Valley was still extremely impoverished and isolated from city services and other parts of the city. In 1998, the average household income within the development totaled approximately $9,000, with 65 percent of all the families receiving some form of public assistance (SFHA 1998). As of 2007, little had changed. For example, while Blacks comprised only 8 percent of the total population of Bay City, they represented 70 percent of the residents of Sun Valley. Within this community, women headed 90 percent of the households, and the average household income totaled approximately $12,726, with 65 percent of all the families receiving some form of public assistance (SFHA 2007). Public transportation service to and from this area remained poor; there were no large grocery stores, banks, or gas stations in the area. Only one gated and barred convenience store stood as a reminder of the small business community that once thrived along Sun Valley Avenue.

As a result of this isolation, the African American community within Sun Valley was very close-knit. Families appeared to know each other, or at least know of each other. Many were related, and those that were not were made family by adding “Auntie” or “play” in front of “sista,” “cousin,” or “mama.” This enmeshment could be found in the many informal child care and transportation arrangements.⁵ For example, Esther, a GEP parent honored at the organization's five-year anniversary celebration for her leadership and courage in shaping a better world, served as a community othermother who raised her own five children plus informally raised two nieces and four neighborhood girls. If you wanted to know what was going on in Sun Valley or with GEP girls, you asked Esther. Neighbors sought her out for advice and assistance, and she often referred both girls and their caregivers to GEP.

INSIDE GEP

Within the Sun Valley community, GEP had a strong and growing presence. When the organization first opened its doors, it shared a space inside the local Boys and Girls Club at the center of the housing development. During the research period, however, GEP had three locations within the Sun Valley community: the administrative office, the “Village” site, and the bungalow. GEP's administrative office was located along Sun Valley Avenue in one of the renovated townhouses. In many ways this office was the “adult space.” The executive director and administrative director had offices at this location. Administrative business and weekly staff meetings took place within this structure. This was also where the parents and other adults of the community went for support. In 1998, GEP opened the village office, a satellite site within a community center that housed service providers for the displaced residents of the demolished Sun Towers. This site was home to the director of programs, the girls' advocate, and group C, the fifteen-to-eighteen-year-old girls who attended the program.

The heart of the program, however, was the small, light-blue bungalow located at the edge of the development. The bungalow was a single-story structure consisting of three “classrooms,” a kitchen area and two bathrooms surrounded by a six-foot-high industrial-strength fence. As you entered the gated area, you were immediately aware of the garden. Maintained by girls, staff, and a dedicated core of volunteers, the garden featured cherry tomatoes, rosemary, lavender, strawberries, lemon grass, medicinal herbs, vegetables, and flowers. In the spring, it appeared as an oasis of life and beauty in the otherwise dusty, urban environment. Situated on a hill, the front of the bungalow looked down at row upon row of townhouses, while the back looked up and away from the community. Its physical location was symbolic: while this was a program for the young women of the community, it was not necessarily from or of this community but negotiated an uneasy tension between these worlds.

Once inside the bungalow, you knew you had entered a space for Black women and girls. Couches, pillows, and rugs dotted the interior, and the walls were covered with photos, posters, artwork, and poetry celebrating the legacy, creativity, and beauty of Black women and girls. Through the main door, you looked directly into the kitchen area, which contained a refrigerator, a sink, lots of cab...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Girls Empowerment Project
• 2. Controlling “The Urban Girl”
• 3. GEP's Emergent Culture of Empowerment
• 4. GEP's Organizational Structure and Power Matrix
• 5. Africentric Womanist Femininity Meets Decent Girl Femininity
• 6. Dance Lessons
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Notes
• Works Cited