https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxERHZWJwVk
In Dominique Christina’s “Mothers of Murdered Sons”, she starts a discussion around the lives of Mamie Till, Sabrina Fulton, and Leslie McFadden following the deaths of their sons. The connecting force between these women, is the high profile nature of their sons’ murders and their having been racially motivated. For reference, the sons of these women were Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, respectively; murdered at ages 14, 17, and 18, their deaths received national attention, formed chasms across color lines, and, as noted in Christina’s piece, incited riots at the hands of disgruntled members of various sympathizing communities. While the topic, in itself, holds a discussion that the world still manages to avoid, it was the nature of Dominique Christina’s narrative, and how she focused on providing a humanizing connection to the women who had suffered the greatest loss, that redirects the conversation of wrongful death and race relations, adding a new perspective and removing the stigma of a marginalization. The piece is conducted chronologically, and addresses that which ties these three women to millions more women, outside of the boundaries of creed or color. Utilizing the graphics of childbirth, she details the lengths that these women took to bring forth the lives of their sons; this juxtaposition of ideas highlights the manner in which their lives were valued in birth and seemingly discarded in death. She states that the bodies of mothers giving birth to sons “lose a lot of blood in delivery”, how their “bones go soft as yolk”, and how they are succumb to a “deliberate flood”. This emphasizes the supernatural power of childbirth, the manner in which women give themselves over to their children for the purpose of becoming more than themselves. The detail of the flood, is an allusion to the biblical story of the flood, a symbol of life after disaster. The religious comparisons continue as Christina compares the women’s “multiplying” to acts performed only by Jesus, himself. These were efforts in an attempt to present the ethereal nature of the woman, and the force of God that subsequently accompanies her in the flesh. However, Dominique Christina also works to humanize the women, while highlighting the dehumanization endured by their sons. The women, as she stated, felt pain, cried out in “prayers to nobody’s god”, were left stony, and left blood behind that never washed away. The last point is complex, in that it details both the child’s birth and death. Michael Brown was left to lie in the streets for hours after his shooting, one could imagine that the blood stains were stubborn to wash away. It is stated that the women “fought their bodies” for their boys, and implied that the fight never ended between boy and body. The end of the poem is more of an attempt at reconciliation than anything; in it, Dominique Christina seems to toggle, mentally, the idea of justification and coming to terms with the cards dealt to the women mentioned. She comes to question the role of a just god, and begins to form excuses for his being seemingly inactive during the time. She states that maybe he is a “charlatan”, an illusion of capability, and writes him into the stereotype of the absentee father in the lives of black males, playing upon the distant omnipresence of God. It was, however, the detail of God’s own murdered son that drove the piece to its climatic thinking point; Christina questions whether or not there is enough Eucharist, or sacrifice of the blood and body for the purpose of holy communion, in these boys for their deaths to matter. While they are not Jesus, they are still human. Does the benevolence of God only extend to his own son? The discussion in this piece was unmatched; providing a new perspective, it bound forces of the concrete and the apocryphal, highlighting that no matter what you believe these two topics are undeniably interconnected. This is “a metaphor for always”.
2 Comments
Michelle
2/3/2017 07:23:44 am
Hey, Mya! I love reading your analyses. They're extremely well-written and in-depth, especially this one. The tone and imagery concerning childbirth also struck a chord in me. It's not often you see childbirth depicted as she depicts it. What significance does the supernatural have on the death of the children that are born? Do you think it adds value to their lives, and builds the connection between mother and son?
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Mya
2/10/2017 07:00:01 am
Hi, Michelle. Thank you for your comment. To answer your question, I'd say that the "supernatural" does both of the things that you mentioned. It confirms that the lives taken were lives that were impactful and those of purpose. It also highlights the unexplainable connection of mother to son which, much like the supernatural, at times exceeds the general understanding of man.
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