Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 125 of 174 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  8 And from Betah and Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, King David took an immense quantity of bronze. 9 When Toi king of Hamath heard about David’s defeat of all the forces of Hadadezer, 10 Toi sent d Joram his son to King David to e greet and congratulate him for his battle and defeat of Hadadezer; for Hadadezer had been at war with Toi. Joram brought with him articles of silver, gold, and bronze [as gifts]. 11 King David also dedicated these [gifts] to the LORD , along with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from all the nations which he subdued: 12 from Aram (Syria), Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek, and from the spoil of Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah. 13 So David made a name for himself when he returned from killing 18,000 f Arameans (Syrians) in the Valley of Salt. 14 He put garrisons in Edom; in all Edom he put garrisons, and all the Edomites became servants to David. And the LORD helped him wherever he went. 15 So David reigned over all Israel, and continued to administer justice and righteousness for all his people. 16 Joab the son of Zeruiah was [commander] over the army; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder (secretary); 17 Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were the [chief] priests, and Seraiah was the scribe; 18 Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was [head] over both the Cherethites and Pelethites [the king’s bodyguards]; and David’s sons were g chief [confidential] advisers (officials) [to the king]. [1 Chr 18:17 ] 2 Samuel 9 David’s Kindness to Mephibosheth 1 A ND DAVID said, “Is there still anyone left of the house (family) of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” 2 There was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, so they called him to David. And the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” He said, “I am your servant.” 3 And the king said, “Is there no longer anyone left of the house (family) of Saul to whom I may show the goodness and graciousness of God?” Ziba replied to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan, [one] whose feet are crippled.” [1 Sam 20:14–17 ] 4 So the king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba replied to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo-debar.” 5 Then King David sent word and had him brought from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar. 6 Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell face down and lay himself down [in respect].

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  CHAPTER 4Hookups and Hang-UpsHolly, a sophomore at a private East Coast college, volunteered to talk to me for a specific reason. She wanted it known that some college girls, girls such as she, enjoyed the so-called hookup culture. “In books and articles they always say that if a girl sleeps around she’ll get called a slut or that all girls only really want relationships,” she said, sweeping her strawberry blond hair back over one shoulder. “Otherwise, it’s just about how hookup culture is good for guys, and how they feel this sense of accomplishment when they’ve had sex with a number of girls. But I’ll just put it out there: I feel accomplished after I have sex with someone that I wanted to have sex with. Last Thursday morning I woke up and apparently everyone in my sorority house knew I’d had sex because they’d heard the bed squeaking through the ceiling. And everyone goes, ‘Holly! High five! You get it, girl!’ I felt accomplished, just like a boy would. I felt like, ‘I went out, I looked good, I showed myself off, and I got it last night. Good for me.’” What’s Sauce for the Gander As with oral sex in the 1990s, discussions of the current “hookup culture” are fertile ground for good old-fashioned media-induced panics. The take-away from most reports tends to swing extreme: Hookups are terrible for girls! Hookups are liberating for girls! Girls are being victimized! Girls are going wild! Here is what they rarely say: young people are not, in fact, having more sex than they used to—at least, if you define sex by intercourse. The seismic tectonic shift in premarital sexual behavior really took place with the Baby Boom generation, according to Elizabeth Armstrong, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who, with her colleagues, has conducted the most comprehensive research on college student hookups. That was when the introduction of the Pill, the rise of the women’s movement, and relaxed attitudes about supervision of “coeds” ignited the sexual revolution. Nor did today’s young ’uns invent the concept of casual sex. What has changed, however, among college students and increasingly among high schoolers, is that when relationships do occur, instead of starting with a date, they often begin with noncommitted sexual contact. Rather than being a product of intimacy, then, sex has become its precursor, or sometimes its replacement. That’s what is meant by the term hookup culture. “Casual sex was happening before in college,” said Debby Herbenick at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, “but there wasn’t the sense that it’s what you should be doing. It is now. I have students who say people should be able to have no emotions in sex, and if you can’t, there’s something wrong with you and you’re missing out.”

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  "With a twist that was all her own imagination," as the narratorial consciousness indicates, "she lived out her days exploring her own thoughts and emotions, giving them full reign, feeling no obligation to please anybody unless their pleasure pleased her" (ii8). In her quest to please herself, she, upon her return to the Bottom, disrupts social "norms." A wanderer and neither wife nor mother, she exists incongruously with the women of the Bottom and concomitantly "violates" community sanctions: she sleeps with other women's husbands (including Nel's), wears no underwear to church functions, and, far worse by community standards, putatively has sex with white men. It is Sula's sexual "escapades" with white men that diametrically oppose the script, as well as flout the tenets of black nationalism, which explicitly demands black women's sexual fidelity-to black men-as a way of countering dominant society's stigmatization, denigration, and association of black women with sexual deviance and pathology, as well as in allegiance with nationalist ideologies.

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  Had I gone into the light, I suppose the shock paddles would have failed.”He looked a t t he l i ne sna k ing along the str ee t i n f r ont of the small r e stau ra nt w a i t ing for a t a ble.A cupboard creaked open, clanked shut. Steps brushed across a carpet, then an armchair sighed under the weight of a person sitting down. Glass chinked against glass, liquid sloshed. She waited—no toast was spoken, no glass clanked against another glass. He was alone inside.He made some crackerjack suggestions.He belonged to the much-vaunted warrior class.She crossed a refuse-strewn street.He slammed his sword back into its sheath.He held the spear in his hands. It was a beautiful weapon. The head was made from dark bronze, tapering gracefully into a fine, fearfully sharp point. The edges glittered in the tent’s half-light. It was fastened to the haft by thirty rivets of gold. The haft was made of rowan, darkened with age, worn smooth and polished by the grip of many hands through the years. He hefted the spear, testing its weight. It was perfectly balanced, as if made specifically for him.Each baby’s face puckered and grimaced, and a last feeble protest escaped on its warm milky breath.Suddenly, it was all salty kisses and sandy toes.He bent down, grabbed the crate and hefted it.The iris on the wall started whirling, emitting a laser web that swept back and forth over the wall.A joystick control popped up from the control panel. A montage of views from the ship’s cameras was overlaid over the cockpit window.It was really not so much a book as a thick stack of pages held together with three leather loops.He slowly, relentlessly materialized out of the dark, his cloak swishing, his black eyes sparkling with joy, his red lips nuzzling the white, submissive, swooning neck and his incisors, just slightly showing, beginning to glisten.He watched himself thinking, as though discovering a new, unfamiliar country where thoughts depended on each other, interlocked. The thought he was handling would fit into the next one he had; he was driving. He had never driven thoughts before. They had come, wanted or unwanted. Now he was telling them where to go.The dogs bared their teeth, lips curled, snarling. Sharp claws scratched and clawed at the baluster rods, massive paws attempting to knock me off. The dogs barked, jumped, banged against the railing. White foam dripped off razor-sharp teeth.He mock-buffed his fingernails on his inexistent lapel with pride.Sweet music leaked into the night.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Renay exercises not only her agency, but also her transcendent abilities in that she transgresses Jerome's patriarchal authority. Renay, now unencumbered by Jerome's misogynist and confining mandates or her heterosexist marriage with him, articulates her refusal to leave Terry and return to Jerome and "the dirt." In her "talking back," to borrow bell hooks's terminology, Renay denigrates Jerome in language that reverberates with the nationalist discourse that Jerome embodies in order to illustrate the ways in which he, even by certain nationalist standards, does not meet the requirements for manhood.49 Renay's "back talk" not only demonstrates her unwillingness to be "policed" by Jerome and by nationalist and larger societal circumscriptions for women, but, of far greater import, it signifies her evolution from objectivity to subjectivity-that is, from a largely unautonomous being to an actualized, empowered, liberated self. "Could It Be Met in this Form?": Shockley and the Ideological Subversion of Convention In 1969, just five years prior to the publication of Loving Her, in the San Francisco Times, Marvin Garson-in a move recognizing as well as drawing upon the liberatory politics of the black nationalist call for "Black Power"-makes a similar call: for "Queer Power." Ruminating on the ways in which black people had, through self-determination, appropriation, and self-definition, revitalized the very meaning of "blackness," he uses the (trans)formative power of (racial) self-definition as a model. Once "it was impolite to suggest that a Negro gentleman might have black skin," and "now it's `Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud."' Perhaps, "in a few years [...I queers will be saying something like, `Don't keep trying to rise above it-kiss me, darling, I'm queer and I love it. "so This redefinition of what's in a name, particularly governing constructions of "lesbian" identity, is precisely what, in part, Shockley's novel anticipates and problematizes. The nexus of black and queer power, a struggle against a desexualized blackness or a construction of sexuality divorced of race, is precisely what Loving Her achieves decades before any black and/ or queer theoretical postulations. Exploring vis-a-vis literary conventions, transgressive embodiment, and racialized expressions of sexual "difference," Shockley not only anticipates but serves as a foundational apparatus and precursor for (post) modern discourses on black sexuality studies, specifically black queer-or "quare"-studies. As Shockley and the same-gender loving movement illuminate the cultural imperative and intersections of race and sexuality (as an act, behavior, and identity), black queer studies follows in a similar tradition. Simply put, Shockley serves as a predecessor for black queer theorists in her focus on the nexus of race and sexuality as black cultural imperatives. In the spirit of broad inclusivity, and not to perpetuate a sense of communal divisiveness, "black queer" encapsulates "and, in effect, names the specificity of the historical and cultural differences"-that simultaneous dialogic sameness and difference-"that shape the experiences and expressions of `queerness. "51

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Even as hooks recognizes Sula's unwillingness to accept or capitulate to the social modalities and communal proscriptions ascribed to blacks and women, she asserts that Sula does not constitute radical black female subjectivity, insomuch as Sula, while reveling in "self-assertion and [a] celebration of autonomy," is "we also know [...] not self-actualized enough to stay alive."45 "Her awareness of what it means to be a radical subject does not," hooks purports, "cross the boundaries of public and private; hers is a privatized self-discovery."46 hooks's reader-response critical approach, as well as her characterological assessment of Sula, presents at least two dilemmas. First, whether deliberately or inadvertently, it equates existential or metaphysical notions of living/being with actualization, whereby Sula's dying-or, "inability" to live-is indicative of Sula's lack of self-actualization. What I suggest is that Sula's death in the narrative should not be confounded and read as indicative of a lack of self-actualization, consciousness, or subjectivity. Rather, it reflects more acutely the limited options (especially when Sula was written) for female characters like Sula who challenge racial/sociocommunal boundaries and transgress restrictions, especially those pertaining to female sexuality and marriage, and who ultimately choose a life of "self-discovery" rather than one of racial uplift and conformity. As literary scholar Mary Helen Washington avers, "The demands of racial uplift and racial loyalty" have meant that such characters-those "who do not uphold these ideals"-are invariably characterized with a fate of conformity, expiation for their perceived transgressive behavior, and far worse: death 47 Yet, it also typifies other attributes that death represents, to revert back to Sharon Holland, in that the dead-and I would argue, in this case, also the dying (Sula)-operates "as an embodied entity or subject capable of transgression."48 In Sula's instance, death/dying marks her destiny, and, even in the process of dying, she does so unconventionally and with an unbreakable spirit of autonomy, nonconformity, and subjectivity. She herself, upon her deathbed, revels in the knowledge that she is unlike other black women dying "like a stump" across the nation. "Me," Sula notes, "I'm going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world," a point to which I will return momentarily (143). Second, and of even greater magnitude, hooks asserts that Sula's "self-discovery" is "privatized" and thereby fails to extend beyond public and private boundaries. Given that the personal is political, as many scholars and second-wave feminists have argued convincingly, it is precisely because Sula's personal "indiscretions" and recalcitrant actions are not privatized and are, indeed, exposed and open for public consumption, that her personal transgressions take on a larger sociocommunal and political significance and educe public/ communal responses.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Published in 1973 while Morrison was an editor at Random House in New York City, where she created a list in black literature reflective of the racial consciousness of the black political movements, Sula dialogizes not only black nationalist ideologies, but also black feminist sensibilities, including intersectionality, and the sexual liberation prompted by the sexual revolution. In that same year, in the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court decreed that abortion was legal, a landmark ruling in tandem and contemporaneous with the liberal politics of the sexual revolution. Sula functions as the material embodiment of black female subjectivity that embraces blackness that neither compromises nor negates her woman-freedom or liberation, sexually or otherwise. Functioning, then, outside the parameters of sociocommunal prescriptions and modalities for women, Sula transgresses convention and concomitantly invests in her "self" rather than live a life of conformity.30 Sula is unlike other Bottom women because she uncharacteristically repudiates conventional life (particularly marriage and motherhood), as well as transgresses the classical black female script, whose tenets her various enactments of "misbehavior" resist and subvert. In her obstinate and fierce refusal to marry and "have some babies" to "settle" her down-as her grandmother Eva suggests immediately upon Sula's return to Medallion-Sula insists that rather than "make somebody else," she wants to invent her "self" (92). Her refusal to acquiesce or conform is transparent, then, in her transgression against communal expectations for women regarding reproduction, which also undermines a fundamental tenet of the (black) nationalist agenda: that black women should "make babies for the revolution." As reproduction is fundamental to nationalist paradigms and agendas, Sula's refusal to reproduce also calls into question and scrutinizes nationalist visions of (an imagined) black nation. She challenges a modality centered around reproduction and presents another model-a "new world blackness," to revert to an earlier argument-that destabilizes and presents a postmodern black notion of "nation." At the crux of this new world black subjectivity is not an intrinsic expectation that black women reproduce. It is critically important, then, that shortly after Eva encourages Sula to marry, bear children, and thereby conform to the roles society ascribes to women, Sula, going against all cultural ethics, commits her to a nursing home: "At the sight of Eva being carried out [...] Sula [stood] holding some papers against the wall, at the bottom of which, just above the word `guardian,' she very carefully wrote Miss Sula Mae Peace" (94, emphasis mine). Sula committed Eva to a nursing home and took particular delight in that act, illustrating her disregard and contempt for both cultural ethics and (Bottom) communal mores. Her pride in, and determination to preserve, her independence and single-woman status is evidenced by her careful and deliberate inscription of "Miss" on the documents and her unwillingness to allow exterior forces, even her own grandmother, to threaten her agency and infringe upon her lifestyle, autonomy, and woman-freedom.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  That phrase, “proud of my body,” continued to bedevil me. On one hand, I admired the young women’s bravado, their willingness to be overtly on the prowl, their refusal to be shamed for how they did or didn’t dress. At the same time, only certain bodies were allowed to be a source of “pride,” to be seen as sexual, to deflect shame, and Holly’s had not always been one of them. As a freshman, she was twenty-five pounds heavier than when we first met—she’d dieted and worked out all summer to lose the weight—and her wardrobe had been considerably more conservative. “I would never have worn anything skimpy because I wasn’t happy with how I looked,” she said. “Presenting myself in skimpy attire would have had a very negative impact on my mental state, because there would be those people, especially boys, who would say, ‘She’s fat and she should wear something else.’” It’s understandable that Holly would feel good about showing off the “right” body—it’s affirming to attract male approval and even female envy—but it’s hard to see her outfits as “liberating” when the threat of ridicule always lurks. One of her sorority sisters, for instance, had recently gained weight. “It’s not that she couldn’t wear skimpy clothes,” Holly said. “But she knows how she would feel if there were asshole-y boys who were like, ‘She’s a fat girl.’”

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  42 When the Philistine looked around and saw David, he derided and disparaged him because he was [just] a young man, with a ruddy complexion, and a handsome appearance. 43 The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with [shepherd’s] staffs?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine also said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.” 45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a n javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. 46 “This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the corpses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that this entire assembly may know that the LORD does not save with the sword or with the spear; for the battle is the LORD ’s and He will hand you over to us.” 48 When the Philistine rose and came forward to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 David put his hand into his bag and took out a stone and slung it, and it struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone penetrated his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck down the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand. 51 So he ran and stood over the Philistine, grasped his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their [mighty] champion was dead, they fled. 52 The men of Israel and Judah stood with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as the entrance to the valley and the gates of Ekron. And the [fatally] wounded Philistines fell along the way to Shaaraim, even as far as Gath and Ekron. 53 The sons of Israel returned from their pursuit of the Philistines and plundered their camp. 54 Then David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons in his tent.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  His mother’s name was Jechiliah of Jerusalem. 4 He did right in the sight of the LORD , in accordance with everything that his father Amaziah had done. 5 He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding a through the vision of God; and as long as he sought (inquired of, longing for) the LORD , God caused him to prosper. Uzziah Succeeds in War 6 He went out and made war against the Philistines, and broke through the wall of Gath, the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod; and he built cities near Ashdod and [elsewhere] among the Philistines. 7 God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabs who lived in Gur-baal, and the Meunites. 8 The Ammonites paid tribute (money) to Uzziah, and his fame spread abroad, even as far as the border of Egypt, for he became very strong. 9 Uzziah also built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, the Valley Gate, and at the corner buttress [of the wall], and fortified them. 10 He also built towers in the wilderness and dug many cisterns, for he had a great deal of livestock, both in the lowlands and in the plain. He also had farmers and vinedressers in the hill country and in the fertile fields, for he loved the soil. 11 Moreover, Uzziah had an army ready for battle, which went into combat by divisions according to the number of their muster as recorded by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the official, under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders. 12 The total number of the heads of the fathers’ households, of valiant men, was 2,600. 13 Under their command was an army of 307,500, who could wage war with great power, to help the king against the enemy. 14 Moreover, Uzziah prepared shields, spears, helmets, body armor, bows, and sling stones for the entire army. 15 In Jerusalem he made machines of war invented by skillful men to be put on the towers and on the [corner] battlements for the purpose of shooting arrows and large stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong. Pride Is Uzziah’s Undoing 16 But when Uzziah became strong, he became so proud [of himself and his accomplishments] that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful and sinned against the LORD his God, for he went b into the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. [Num 3:38 ] 17 Then Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the LORD , men of courage. 18 They opposed King Uzziah and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD , but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who have been consecrated to burn incense.

• From Vox (1992)

  Some weeks go by, and you sell several other small pieces, a ring, some earrings, but the necklace does not sell. You’re curious, you peep through the curtain and watch Harvey taking customers over to your case, and you notice that he seems to be avoiding calling attention to the very fine piece, he’s distracting buyers when they comment on it. You realize, not without a certain pleasure, that Harvey is probably somewhat in love with you, though he’s too gentle ever to raise the issue. He now averts his gaze whenever you extend your wrist to put on one of your bracelets for a customer. And you begin to sense that he doesn’t want to sell the glorious strumulite necklace you made because he is afraid that when he does he’s going to lose you. And you feel that he’s probably right. He’s started asking you if you’re happy, if you have all the tools you need. There have been other jeweleresses in the window of Harvey’s Semi-Precious in days gone by, of course, and they have all gone on to bigger things, bigger commissions, but none of them has gotten to Harvey the way you have, you suspect.” “I’m a little full of myself, aren’t I?” she said. “You are, yes, and yet you’re uncertain too. And so one morning, you’re in your glass enclosure working away, and you look up and there’s this guy standing quite close to the glass, peering in at you. You nod, you’re used to this, and he nods. He’s wearing a suit, and he’s carrying what looks to be a fork, wrapped in a piece of paper towel. He looks up at the sign over the shop and you hear him go in and you hear him talking to Harvey. Harvey sounds a bit testy. You hear him say, ‘She can’t take her time up with uncreative work like that.’ Then the guy says something, a note of urgency in his voice. Harvey says, ‘No, I’m not kidding, really, no.’ And you pop your head out of the curtain. The two men look at you. Harvey goes, ‘I’m trying to tell this gentleman that you’re an artist and you are not able to do something like repair his fork. He doesn’t want me to do the repair, he wants you to do it.’ The guy in the suit looks embarrassed, he holds up his hands. You walk out into the shop. You take off your insulated soldering gloves and put them carelessly down on a display of rare campaign buttons. You’re wearing a shirt with small green and black stars on it, and black pants, and black sneakers. You hold out your hand for the fork, the guy gives it to you. You say, ‘An incident with the dishwasher?’ and he nods yes. And you say, ‘Harvey, it won’t take me a second.’ Harvey goes, ‘Fine!

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Given the calculated efforts toward black racial uplift, and the ideological and sociopolitical contexts undergirding them, sentiments such as those expressed in the 1894 issue of Woman's Era are emblematic, to say the least, of a progressive and radical approach to the role of black women, as well as a competing discourse on black women's positionalities. Diverging from constructions of black womanhood monolithically or exclusively within the realm of the domestic, the quotation used as this chapter's epigraph challenges narrow conceptualizations that relegate black women to a domestic position, if even for uplift purposes. Rather, it advocates "alternatives" for black women: options and choices beyond, not myopically or exclusively constituted by, marriage, motherhood, and traditional familial trajectories. Anna Julia Cooper, widely known for her advocacy of and commitment to racial uplift, recognized women's positionality in racial progress as integral. "Only the Black Woman," as she eloquently asserted, "can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me."5 What Cooper's position on the role of women illuminates, whether in specific or broader terms, is the nexus of black womanhood-unencumbered by marginalization, restrictive dictates, disenfranchisement, violence, and gender conventions within the confines of the domestic sphere-and black racial and sociopolitical progress. Racial progress, that is, was contingent upon, rather than inhibited by, women and their access to education, protection, enfranchisement, and progressive politics neither punctuated by marginalization and female gender deference nor characterized by rigid, limited, or patriarchal perspectives. As Unbought and Unbossed is invested in the historical, ideological, and sociopolitical dynamics governing black womanhood and the representational, this inaugural chapter provides a lens, historic and contextual, by which to explore the shifting paradigms of black womanhood and prescriptions for women in the early era: emblematized by the classical black female script and "alternatives" (as "new world black and new world woman," as explicated in the discussion that follows), as these evolve and operate in post-i96os (con)texts. I am particularly vested in the nexus of the script and postmodern modalities of black womanhood; second, in those instances wherein women's roles and positionalities are not contingent upon particular racialized dictates; and, third, those "alternatives"-to allude to the opening epigraph-to prescribed conventionality and how these are treated, broached, and/or subverted in post-civil rights black women's literary and cultural production. I turn, to this end, to the post-196os novels of black women to examine how black women writers like Toni Morrison, whose work is the central focus of this chapter, revisit, subvert, or defamiliarize prescriptive tenets and positionalities for women predicated on (outmoded) Victorian and racialized constructs. Or, framed yet another way, I examine how Morrison deploys such postmodern techniques as disruption, (de)fragmentation, and (re) inscriptions with regard to black women's bodies and sexuality to gesture toward a postmodern "new world" (female) blackness.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  8 “My brothers (fellow spies) who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear; but I followed the LORD my God completely. 9 “So Moses swore [an oath to me] on that day, saying, ‘Be assured that the land on which your foot has walked will be an inheritance to you and to your children always, because you have followed the LORD my God completely.’ [Deut 1:35 , 36 ] 10 “And now, look, the LORD has let me live, just as He said, these forty-five years since the LORD spoke this word to Moses, when Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, b look at me, I am eighty-five years old today. 11 “I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so is my strength now, for war and for going out and coming in. 12 “So now, give me this hill country about which the LORD spoke that day, for you heard on that day that the [giant-like] Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.” 13 So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. 14 Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he followed the LORD , the God of Israel, completely. 15 The name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba [city of Arba]; for Arba was the greatest man among the [giant-like] Anakim. Then the land had rest from war. Joshua 15 Territory of Judah 1 N OW THE lot (allotment) for the tribe of the sons of Judah according to their families reached [southward to] the border of Edom, southward to the wilderness of Zin at its most southern part. 2 Their southern border was from the lower end of the Salt (Dead) Sea, from the bay that turns southward. 3 Then it proceeded southward to the ascent of Akrabbim and continued along to Zin, and then went by the south of Kadesh-barnea and continued along to Hezron, and went up to Addar and turned about to Karka. 4 It continued along to Azmon and proceeded to the a Brook of Egypt (Wadi el-Arish), and the border ended at the [Mediterranean] sea. This was their southern border. 5 The eastern border was the Salt (Dead) Sea, as far as the mouth of the Jordan. The northern border was from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan. 6 Then the border went up to Beth-hoglah, and continued along north of Beth-arabah, and the border went up to the [landmark of the] stone of Bohan the son of Reuben.

• From Vox (1992)

  “What happened was, you went to a program in a university, and you got a masters in silversmithing, with some postgraduate work in pendant mounting and bead drilling, and you found that you had a very good eye, and you really were able to make bracelets and earrings and especially necklaces that looked good on people, not that looked good in the display case, in fact sometimes your work even looked a little strange, a little knobby and unsure of itself in the display case, but on the human form—divine. So you graduate from the program and it’s time to make a living, and you take your best work around to various jewelry places, and you get a mixed reaction, frankly, the world isn’t quite ready for you, and finally you take it to Harvey’s Semi-Precious, which you’ve avoided because in a way it’s a little down-market—it started as a head shop in fact, and Harvey’s this fairly old guy now with a big collection of fancy cigarette cases from the twenties that you find saddens you, and he’s got what you might call an old-world smell, but you interview with him, and he seems nice, and he’s very encouraging about your work, and you decide what the hay. But the only stipulation is, if you work for Harvey, you have to work in the store, in this small glass enclosure that kind of projects from one of the windows so that people walking by on the street can watch you work. You’re a little hesitant about that, but he draws the curtain open, tells you to take a seat, and it’s this nice little room, with many many small wooden drawers that are handy on either side, and a whole set of silversmithing tools that are mounted on little spring clips, and a nice flame there, a nice blue flame, with a yellow tip, and it really seems very cozy, and yet of course visible from the street, and so you start work. And Harvey could not be nicer—he treats you with kindly irony, and when you make a piece he especially likes, he is very appreciative. He sets up a special display case for just your work in the store, and he doesn’t mind when you come in a little late. And over the first few months you start doing this series of bracelets, simple elegant silver bracelets, which Harvey puts in the case. Naturally many of the customers who wander into the store are young men buying jewelry for women they love, and they’re uncertain, they want to be sure they’re right to buy that particular piece, and so Harvey gets in the habit of poking his head through the curtain and asking you, very hesitantly and politely, if you might want to come out and show the prospective buyer what the bracelet looks like on a real woman.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The first example of the exercise of a sort of papal authority is found towards the close of the first century in the letter of the Roman bishop Clement (d. 102) to the bereaved and distracted church of Corinth. This epistle, full of beautiful exhortations to harmony, love, and humility, was sent, as the very address shows,217 not in the bishop’s own name, which is not mentioned at all, but in that of the Roman congregation, which speaks always in the first person plural. It was a service of love, proffered by one church to another in time of need. Similar letters of instruction, warning and comfort were written to other congregations by Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus. Nevertheless it can hardly be denied that the document reveals the sense of a certain superiority over all ordinary congregations. The Roman church here, without being asked (as far as appears), gives advice, with superior administrative wisdom, to an important church in the East, dispatches messengers to her, and exhorts her to order and unity in a tone of calm dignity and authority, as the organ of God and the Holy Spirit.218 This is all the more surprising if St. John, as is probable, was then still living in Ephesus, which was nearer to Corinth than Rome. The hierarchical spirit arose from the domineering spirit of the Roman church, rather than the Roman bishop or the presbyters who were simply the organs of the people.219 But a century later the bishop of Rome was substituted for the church of Rome, when Victor in his own name excommunicated the churches of Asia Minor for a trifling difference of ritual. From this hierarchical assumption there was only one step towards the papal absolutism of a Leo and Hildebrand, and this found its ultimate doctrinal climax in the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. Ignatius.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers [in death], and they buried him in [the garden of] his own house. And his son Amon became king in his place. Amon Becomes King in Judah 21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. 22 But he did evil in the sight of the LORD , just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and he served them. 23 Further, he did not humble himself before the LORD as his father Manasseh [finally] had done, but Amon multiplied his guilt and his sin. 24 And his servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house (palace). 25 But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place. 2 Chronicles 34 Josiah Succeeds Amon in Judah 1 J OSIAH WAS eight years old when he became king, and he reigned for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. 2 He did what was right in the sight of the LORD , and walked in the ways of David his father (forefather) and did not turn aside either to the right or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young (sixteen), he began to seek after and inquire of the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and cast images. 4 They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were high above them; he also smashed the Asherim and the carved images and the cast images to pieces, and ground them to dust and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 Then Josiah burned the bones of the [pagan] priests on their altars and purged and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6 In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their surrounding ruins, 7 he tore down the altars and beat and crushed the Asherim and the carved images into powder, and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem. Josiah Repairs the Temple 8 In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when he had purged the land and the [LORD ’s] house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder (secretary), to repair the house of the LORD his God.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Like most Americans today, the young people in these three groups did not expect to remain abstinent until marriage. At the same time, Carpenter found that a substantial minority of teens, which once would have included Christina, had gone resolutely the other way, becoming more committed to and more vocal about remaining chaste until their wedding night. For them, too, virginity was a “gift” to be shared with one true partner, but it was also something else: a way to honor God. Waiting for the Prince An attractive couple stepped out of a low-slung sports car at the entrance of the East Ridge Country Club in Shreveport, Louisiana. He dark-haired, in a tuxedo; she in what appeared to be a wedding dress: strapless, with a sparkling white bodice and yards of floor-length tulle. At second glance, though, I saw that something did not quite fit: there was a touch of gray at the man’s temples. The woman was not actually a woman at all: she was a fourteen-year-old girl. These were not newlyweds; they were father and daughter, here for the seventh annual, tristate, Ark-La-Tex Purity Ball. Inside, other couples, similarly dressed, milled around a table laden with candy: pink and orange jelly beans and gum balls. Most of them were white, though there was a smattering of African Americans and a few Latinos. One group of daughters and dads (or other male “mentors,” who were equally welcome) stood near curtains covered in twinkle lights. Some had already taken their seats at round tables decorated with candles and silk flowers. A few posed for commemorative photos of the evening, which, according to its online invitation, was “designed to equip and encourage young women seventh through twelfth grade to stay pure until marriage.” For one hundred dollars a couple (plus fifty dollars each for any additional daughters), it continued, “this event allows fathers an opportunity to pledge themselves to love and protect their daughters. It also helps young women begin to realize the truth: that they are infinitely valuable princesses who are ‘worth waiting for’” (emphasis in original).

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  I have had a lot of conversations about this over the years with my nieces and my friends’ daughters, and a lot of times I would give anything for the earth to swallow me up so I don’t have to talk to them about orgasms. But I make myself do it. With one friend’s teenage daughter I said, “I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I want you to think about these questions. Do you know where your clitoris is? Have you masturbated? Have you had an orgasm? With yourself? With him? Are you comfortable telling him what you like sexually?” A lot of adult women aren’t comfortable with that. If what you’re trying to do is express intimacy and mutual pleasure, I’m not sure that rushing to intercourse without understanding that pool of experience is going to get you there. So why are you doing it? I’m not saying it’s wrong from a moral perspective, but from the perspective of understanding yourself and your sexuality and exploring, building agency and strength. Ask yourself those questions. It’s so important for girls. What do you think this generation is doing right? What gives you hope for change? I had this conversation with a girl and she said that all the women in her family were super strong. Then she told me this litany of non-reciprocal experiences and I said, “Why did that happen?” And she told me, “Well, I guess girls are taught to be so meek and deferential.” I said, “Wait a second, you just told me how strong you are.” She said, “I didn’t know that ‘strong woman’ applied to sex.” But then she said, “I’m not doing [other girls] any favors by pretending these things are okay. I’m going to start going into my encounters demanding reciprocity and respect. Otherwise these guys are going to think this is okay, and they’re going to keep doing this with somebody else too.” Appendix B: Girls & Sex by the numbersCOMPILED BY PEGGY ORENSTEINThe average teenager is exposed to nearly 14,000 references to sex each year on television.1 Ninety-one percent of comedies and eighty-seven percent of dramas contain sexual content.2 Ninety-two percent of the top songs on the Billboard charts are about sex.3 Sixty-five percent of girls say selfies boost their confidence; more than half say pictures of them posted by others, however, make them feel bad about their bodies.4 Ninety percent of college men and one-third of women viewed porn during the last year.5 One in three girls aged fifteen to seventeen say they have performed oral sex on a partner to avoid having intercourse.6 More than one-third of teenagers included oral sex in their definition of ”abstinence.”7 The average American first has intercourse at seventeen; by nineteen, three quarters of teens have had sex.8

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The comparative indifference and partial aversion of the Christians to the affairs of the state, to civil legislation and administration exposed them to the frequent reproach and contempt of the heathens. Their want of patriotism was partly the result of their superior devotion to the church as their country, partly of their situation in a hostile world. It must not be attributed to an "indolent or criminal disregard for the public welfare" (as Gibbon intimates), but chiefly to their just abhorrence of the innumerable idolatrous rites connected with the public and private life of the heathens. While they refused to incur the guilt of idolatry, they fervently and regularly prayed for the emperor and the state, their enemies and persecutors.620 They were the most peaceful subjects, and during this long period of almost constant provocation, abuse, and persecutions, they never took part in those frequent insurrections and rebellions which weakened and undermined the empire. They renovated society from within, by revealing in their lives as well as in their doctrine a higher order of private and public virtue, and thus proved themselves patriots in the best sense of the word.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Still not yet referenced by name but differentiated based on phenotypic characteristics, skin tone and bodily features, Theresa and Lorraine are reduced to a fixation on their bodies and physical attributes that, problematically, does not extend beyond these aesthetic features; yet, on the other hand, they also embody dimension and characteristics that resist their conflation into absolute or singular categories that would relegate them and lesbians, as well as same-gender loving women generally, to undifferentiated types. They are imbued with a desirability and such qualities as that of being aesthetically pleasing-"pretty"-in ways that disrupt stereotypes and false, illusory conflations of lesbians and same-gender loving women as outside the beauty status quo: as ugly and sexually diverse because of their undesirability which, in turn, links with an inability to attract men. Just as Naylor demonstrates the heterogeneity that exists among black women within a specific communal locale, as evidenced by her dramatization of the lives of seven women, so, too, does she rescue black lesbians and same-gender loving women from a homogeneity that would otherwise render them and their experiences monolithic. While both of them love women sexually and emotionally, they differ on both experiential and ideological levels. Lorraine's first lover was a woman while she was in high school, and since then she never had a male lover or sexual encounters with men. Because she possesses knowledge of and conviction about her sexual character and intimate desires for women, when her father found a letter from her high school lover, Lorraine refused to lie about its fundamental meanings. As a result of embracing her sexuality and sexual attraction to women, she is kicked out-in an excommunication from her family-and not even allowed to take anything beyond the clothes on her back. Even in her conviction, she has a complex relationship to the designation "lesbian" and what it entails; her very existence, as well as what she embodies, challenges the hegemonic domains of heterosexuality, yet she also does not necessarily embrace, at least not comfortably, a subject position that renders her an outsider in ways that exclude her from community or reduce her to something that, in the words of Miss Eva, "'tain't natural." I've accepted it all my life, and it's nothing I'm ashamed of. I lost a father because I refused to be ashamed of it-but it doesn't make me any different from anyone else in the world. [...] There are two things that have been a constant in my life since I was sixteen years old-beige bras and oatmeal. The day before I first fell in love with a woman, I got up, had oatmeal for breakfast, put on a beige bra, and went to school. The day after I fell in love with that woman, I got up, had oatmeal for breakfast, and put on a beige bra. I was no different the day before or after that happened. (165)