A few days ago, noted poet/speaker/scholar Dr. Maya Angelou guest-blogged at Hillary Clinton’s campaign site. Her post title: “Celebrating Women: A Note from Dr. Maya Angelou.”
She opens by quoting herself which, frankly, is a pretty pretentious move in itself, but to open with a quatrain from “And Still I Rise?” Really?
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Look, we don’t want to begrudge anyone his affinity for Angelou or her trademark poem, which is essentially an overlong reiteration of LL Cool J’s much more precise and searing sentiment, “Don’t call it a comeback; I been here for years….,” but we’ve always carried a bit of befuddlement about the Angelou Appeal.
Between “And Still I Rise,” “Phenomenal Woman,” and the Oprahization of Angelou circa the early ’90s, the poet-elder seems to have become a shell of her earlier, more relevant self.
Those who remember Maya as a young woman—my Nigerian literature professor in grad school among them—recall a woman who was statuesque (Angelou is six feet tall), self-possessed, brothel-dwelling, convention-shunning, rape-surviving, and womanist at her core. They remember a renaissance woman and painted lady: a teen mother, a drop-out, the first Black streetcar conductor in San Francisco, a dancer, a call girl. She was someone untethered to the traditional idea of what it means to be a woman in this country.
Those of us who only know the older Maya—the Seussian “a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman, that’s me” poet whose known more for her Hallmark cards than for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—have a hard time understanding our parents’ and maybe even grandparents’ admiration for her, especially when she decides to use her “woman elder” status to write sap like this:
Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.
There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you’re born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But, to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies.
Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country.
She is the prayer of every woman and man who long for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.
She declares she wants to see more smiles in the families, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace. Hillary Clinton intends to help our country to what it can become.
She means to rise.
She means to help our country rise. Don’t give up on her, ever.
Look, Dr. Angelou, we’re cool with the fact that you’ve endorsed Hillary over Barack. It’s completely okay that she “makes you very proud, proud that she gives herself the authority to be in her own skin.” That’s your right. But making broad, lavish, blanket overstatements like Hillary is the prayer of every woman and man who want social justice in our country…. That’s taking it way too far.
And we have to wonder if you would’ve made such a statement back in the day, Dr. Angelou, before you became the Dr. Maya “And Still I Rise” Angelou.
We’re glad that today is your 80th birthday and that, earlier this week, a book was released in your honor. You’re a lovely lady, no matter how many times we’ve had to listen to girls recite “Phenomenal Woman” and “And Still I Rise” at high school talent shows and beauty pageants (so many times, we’ve cried out for mercy and wished neither poem had ever been published, but who’s counting?). We respect you as an elder, even if we think you affect an over-regal, over-wise air sometimes.
But if you keep up these little “Let me tell you about my girl, Hillary Clinton” and “She needs us to rally behind her and help her rise” diatribes, you’re gonna come off like some of those South Carolinian sisters The New York Times profiled at that beauty salon. And that would be a really sad legacy.
Also: don’t think we missed that part where you tried to imply that some women don’t deserve to be called women—and that they earn the honor by “taking responsibility for the time they take and the space they occupy.” What does that even mean? We’ll tell you what we hope it doesn’t mean: that it’s socially irresponsible for a woman not to support Clinton’s bid for the presidency and by selecting another candidate, we’re somehow:
- not for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.
- not interested in “making a difference in our country.”
- useless as “women” and instead only fit to be called “old females.”
Let’s hope you aren’t insinuating any of the above with your dogged dedication to Hillary’s “rise.” Because those would be fightin’ words.
