Black & Green Atlantic

Towards the end of Moon and the Mars, I began to notice Grammy Cahill increasingly making comparisons between Irish peasants and minority groups in the United States. This was particularly prevalent when Theo found Grammy Cahill outside of their house at night, lamenting the horrors she endured in Ireland and recounting the trials that she faced. When referring to corn and other crops that were successful in Ireland during the potato blight, she says “Well [the landowners] sure couldn’t line their pockets by handin it over to the starvin paupers they made to sow and harvest it! Us, the original inhabitants, the Indians of Ireland!” (Corthron 430). In making this comparison between the Irish and the Native Americans, Grammy is expressing the empathy that she feels for them, and claiming that they might be more alike than they appear. Considering the way that the Irish were also forced off of their land due to British greed, they really do seem to have common histories. 

As tensions grow between the Irish and the Black Americans in New York, it may seem that Grammy Cahill also has a motive to express her sympathy to her Black granddaughter, and to show that she stands in solidarity with her. This is once again apparent when Grammy takes Theo on a walk and describes the time that she met Frederick Douglass. She tells Theo how Douglass was astonished to find the lack of prejudice he felt as a Black man in Ireland, and his shock at how Irish peasants fared somewhat similarly to slaves in America based on the poverty and starvation he witnessed. Grammy says, “No one would say the sufferin was equal to slavery. Irish weren’t stolen and sold, whipped and raped. But our misery was vast. Even a former slave astonished” (Corthron 493). At the time that she brings this up, tensions had risen even more between the Irish and Black Americans, and Theo seems to recognize the pointedness with which she says this. 

While it is, of course, a good thing that Grammy Cahill stands with her granddaughter and the Black people of New York, one cannot help but wonder if the only reason for her alliance is the fact that she might lose Theo if she stands with her fellow Irish New Yorkers. It is clear from the beginning of the war that her Uncle Fergus does not care about abolishing slavery, and it often seems that Grammy Cahill has to have deep discussions with Theo to prove her loyalty and lack of prejudice. It is evident that Theo’s Irish family deeply cares about Theo and her father’s side of the family; they do not participate in the riots near the end of the novel and they stop working for companies that perpetuate slavery once they realize the issue. It makes me wonder, however, where they would stand if they didn’t have Theo, and if Brigid had never married into the Brook family at all. If they have changed their values and mindsets for the sake of one little girl that they all love, is it really enough? Is it enough that they abhor slavery because of their own ties to Theo, and not because of the horrors of slavery in and of itself?

One aspect of Moon and the Mars that I’ve found particularly interesting is the portrayal of the women’s rights movement in the nineteenth century, and its relationship with the Abolitionist movement. In the 1859 section, Auntie Eunice begins holding salon meetings with other black women to discuss art, literature, and social issues. In the second of these meetings, a wealthy white woman named Mrs. Heverworth attends after gifting Eunice a piano. Mrs. Heverworth is an active member of the women’s rights movement in New York, and seems to support Abolition as well. There is one specific line on page 197 that stood out to me— it occurs after one of the black women describes how the white executors of Maria Stewart’s husband’s will committed a theft that left her without any money. In response to this, Mrs. Heverworth says, “The white male executors,” emphasizing the idea that she shares womanhood with the others in the room, and it is the white male who is the ultimate oppressor. This reminded me of modern day “white feminism”, and the phenomenon of white women excluding racism from their realm of advocacy. There is a tendency for white women to distance themselves from the atrocities committed by white people, as we also have faced oppression from white men. But in doing so, we disregard our own complacency in racism and ignore the history of violence committed against black people by white women. This correction by Mrs. Heverworth read as a moment of intentional distancing to me, an attempt to portray herself as separate from these racist white people, despite the strong possibility that the only reason white women weren’t a part of this crime was because they couldn’t have those jobs. 

Mrs. Heverworth goes on to describe how all the women who founded the Seneca Falls convention were abolitionists, and that Frederick Douglass was present as well. But no black women were in attendance, and Mrs. Heverworth expresses “shock” when Theo asks if she can attend the next Women’s Rights Conference. I think that while Mrs. Heverworth believes in Abolition, she still enjoys the privilege she holds over black women and struggles to imagine them holding the same positions as her. Right after this scene Theo witnesses Mrs. Heverworth and other white women enter the hall where the Women’s Rights Convention is taking place, forced to pass by crowds of protesting men hurling violent misogynistic insults. Theo has moments of both resenting Mrs. Heverworth’s blatant privilege above her and other black women, while also understanding that Mrs. Heverworth is facing sexism as well, although it may manifest itself in a different way. I found it really incredible how Corthron portrayed the nuance of white and black women’s different relationships to feminism through the lens of a young girl.

I’m interested in exploring this further with the inclusion of the Irish women in the book, who are white but lack the privileges that Mrs. Heverworth has. There have been moments of both solidarity with black women and forms of racism exhibited by Theo’s Irish family, and I’d like to dig into their role in this white feminism as well.

MARIA TOBIAS REPLY:
This is a really interesting topic that I have talked a bit about in a gender studies class that I am taking this semester. While the feminist movement has made a lot of progress in advocating for women’s rights, it is always interesting to consider the hypocritical oppression of women of color and their long-term elimination from the movement that has occurred for as long as the feminist movement itself has.

LOLA OLAGBEGI REPLY:

This is a very insightful reflection as it speaks to the nature of intersectionality in the book. The book is centered on the convergence of Black and Irish identities but also brings to focus the added identity of being female, and brings the question of where Theo falls on the privilege spectrum given that she is a mixed race girl.

My first thought when defining the Atlantic was the struggle of the Middle Passage. I could not think past the slave narratives and the history lessons of the cane and tobacco traded for people. The standard history is rooted in pain and robbery. There were moments of creativity, however, they were dulled by the dehumanization of people forced into chattel slavery. The Black and Green Atlantic serves to take a closer look at that narrative; to remove the deficit-based thinking and uncover the ways in which struggles and pain have brought flourishing. In separation comes combination, and new pockets of existence come to be. The Irish, deprived of food, and caught in political turmoil needed to find sanctuary and a future. Black people on the other hand were deprived of citizenship, culture, family, and identity. Their ostracization in society placed them in some proximity to each other. 

I have lived in New York my whole life, yet I did not know the history of Seneca Village or Five Points. Both no longer exist in the city. My New York is an immigrant city full of culture, compacted by songs, and moved by dance. Theo would agree as she walks the streets, independent at her young age, that everything and nothing shows. Theo is outfitted with both her Irish and Black heritage. She is able to identify the different aspects between her Irish family and her Black family. The cultures also intermingle in the streets. Queens is now a center for immigrants as well with many first-generation Americans who come from multi-ethnic backgrounds. These neighborhoods are underdeveloped compared to the gentrified parts of the city yet they are representative of the snapshots of various home countries. The neighborhoods are the final memories of a time that no longer exists in a country mostly forgotten. Soon, those pieces will merge and become distinctive parts of American culture, hailing immigrant backgrounds. 

Central to the notion of the Black and Green Atlantic is the recurring image of ships; the idea of traveling and returning is ever present, even if that return is to a culture that is completely colonized and changed. These changes occur because of movement of ideas and people, wanted or unwanted, between cultures, and personal identity stems from the journey of those whose cultures are changing. Gilroy describes this notion of cultural journeying via ships quite succinctly when he wrote that “ships immediately focus attention on the middle passage, on the various projects for redemptive return to an African homeland, on the circulation of ideas and activists as well as the movement of key cultural and political artefacts: tracts, books, gramophone records, and choirs” (Gilroy 4). An emphasis on “artefacts” is necessary because as Gilroy indicates, once one leaves on a cultural journey the culture they leave behind is never quite the same. This provokes an interesting perspective on the Black and Green Atlantic: is it possible for multiple cultures, for example Black and Irish cultures, to coexist as complete wholes or does their dual existence cause concession of culture or identity one way or another? 

 In Moon and the Mars, Kia Corthron contributes to this cultural debate through her protagonist, Theo, who is both Black and Irish. The separation between Theo’s two cultural worlds is physically depicted by the New York City streets Theo travels up and down when she switches households according to a side of the family. Corthron’s commentary on Gilroy’s question on culture is complicated—Theo is proud of who she is, openly and confidently referring to herself as a “mutt,” but her two families’ beliefs split her in two. This is evident in her Irish family’s open support of slavery, such as the fact that her aunt found no issue working with slave owners. Just as a boat traveling between two destinations can find itself stuck in the middle of the ocean, young Theo is torn the same: equally proud of their identities yet struggling to see how they can coincide.

While reading both the criticism and Moon and the Mars this week, I kept thinking about what Joseph Roach calls the “project of whiteness.” His idea is that inventing whiteness was an act of surrogacy, and the completion of that project required forgetting the “mixtures, blends, and provisional antitypes necessary to its production” (6). This is certainly reflected by the scant version of history taught in schools—the public education system continues to invent whiteness (and America) by forgetting the mixtures and blends necessary to its production. Roach goes on to adopt performance as a way to glimpse through this forgetting; he believes we can remember history by looking at orature. However, I think that Moon and the Mars is partially an attempt to remember the “mixtures, blends, and provisional antitypes” necessary to the production of whiteness. Though Moon and the Mars cannot entirely be categorized as orature because it is a text, the highly vernacular nature of the narration is an element of orature. Moreover, the emphasis on learning as a key element of the text, which we discussed in class, suggests that Moon and the Mars is trying to re-remember history.

Theo herself is one of the mixtures/blends that the project of whiteness often forgets. She is half-Black and half-Irish, which is a demographic entirely ignored in the American history that I was taught in school. By reframing history through Theo’s perspective—which Corthron does through the integration of the news into Theo’s everyday life—Corthron is remembering how a specific mixture/blend existed in the production of whiteness. 

Theo hears both her Irish family and her Black family’s opinions on current events, and she finds an interpretation of her own through mixing those opinions. Sometimes, her families offer contradictory opinions—Grammy Cahill condemns the House of Industry and supports Tammany Hall while Mr. Samuel and Grammy Brooks condemn and support the opposite. Her Irish family warns her of the House of Industry’s subjugation of Irish children, while her Black family cautions against the Democratic Tammany Hall (125-129). Theo, in attempting to reconcile these perspectives, is wary of both organizations. She leaves the House of Industry quickly: “I run out before she can adopt me into Irish slavery! Or colored slavery! Either way, I’m on the market!” (131). Theo recognizes the blended nature of her identity, and her interpretation of history is informed by it. As the audience learns alongside Theo, we get a new framing of history that emphasizes the previously forgotten mixtures and blends.

As a former scholar of art history in high school, I was relieved to see something recognizable among the sea of text in Gilroy’s article “The Black & Green Atlantic.” While much of that text was very difficult for me to decipher, much less understand, the portion discussing J. M. William Turner’s infamous painting of a slave ship was like a sigh of relief. 

One of the most note-worthy parts of Gilroy’s references to this painting was how he mentioned the fact that the owner of the painting could not speak to its actual meaning and rather was only able to speak of the “aesthetics of painting water” (Gilroy, 14) in the way that Turner was able to paint waves and utilize different colors. I think this is not only an interesting fact, but a very interesting commentary on art as well as artistic interpretation and analysis. 

In the words spoken from the movie clip that we watched last class, “artists use lies to tell the truth.” I believe that this quote is directly related to William Turner’s slave ship in that it utilizes bright colors and delicate brush stroke techniques that distract from the painting’s true and grim subject matter. 

When we are faced with an artistic interpretation of a grim and difficult subject, we oftentimes choose to focus on another element of the piece which makes us feel more comfortable in our discussion rather than to sit in our own discomfort. While this route usually tends to be more common and helps us to feel more comfortable in our artistic interpretations, it is very important to remember that art must be interpreted to its fullest and most complete extent rather than focusing on the elements which aid in our avoidance of discussing the more “touchy” subjects. 

So much of our world’s history can be seen through artistic interpretations throughout history, including our more horrific actions and mistakes. In order to fully prevent these mistakes from happening again, it is important to educate and acknowledge their existence, especially in art.

“Moon and the Mars” is a testament to what many bi-racial people have experienced at least once in their life: balancing the identity of two different races while only being one person. Oftentimes, people believe that bi-racial people take on the racial identities of their mothers. “Moon and the Mars” offers us a different perspective in which Theo takes on the racial identities of her mother and father and therefore, expands the idea of what it means to be Black in America. She has run into this issue several times with her mother’s side of the family, especially with Ciaran. For example, when she and Ciaran visit the minstrel show at the circus, Theo finds the show offensive and Ciaran says “it’s just a show” (Corthron, 271). This statement essentially minimized Theo’s legitimate concerns about the show and how it portrays Black people. Moreover, it speaks to how bi-racial people explain one-half of their identities to the other side, and the frustrations that come with it. Ciaran’s indifference towards the show makes Theo feel like her feelings do not matter to that side of her family. Especially when her Aunt Maryam was a former slave, Ciaran’s words show the indifference he has towards her bi-racial identity. Having to constantly explain half of your identity to another person can be frustrating, which is seen several times in “Moon and the Mars”. It demonstrates that balancing these identities is not easy, especially during a time when Black people when enslaved.

Furthermore, “Moon and the Mars” speaks to Gilroy’s idea of expanding the idea of what it means to be Black. Although his main argument was to expand the idea past “African American exceptionalism”, I would like to argue that this book demonstrates that an individual can be Black and bi-racial simultaneously. I take this idea very personally considering I am bi-racial and I too can speak Irish. We see that Theo can speak Irish, which is very uncommon in modern society. Yet, this book does not use that against her to make her seem less “Black”. Instead, “Moon and the Mars” shows how both identities can coexist at the same time. We see that Theo takes Black culture and Black politics just as seriously as the rest of her family members even though she is bi-racial. For example, she is concerned about her Aunt Maryam’s freedom status and is seriously upset at Ciaran working with people involved with slavery. This book spends considerable amounts of time recounting Theo’s time with her paternal family and showing the deep relationships she has with each of these relatives. She never denies the Black side of her family but instead, she embraces it. She proves that being bi-racial is an expansion of what it means to be Black instead of being separate from it just because her mother is Irish. 

In the 1861 section of Moon and the Mars, readers witness Theo come into a new kind of consciousness. We as readers have essentially grown up with her as she moves through life in Five Points, seeing the historically-significant world through her eyes, and consequently losing innocence as the novel progresses and Theo gains life experience. Until now, we understand Theo’s financial situation to a certain extent; we know that her family is usually short on money, but we can also recognize that Theo considers herself a “lucky orphan” because she has family, rarely lacks for food (with the exception of the depression), and always has a roof over her head. It is during the chapter titled “War” that Theo realizes exactly where her and her family fall in terms of economic status. 

Near the beginning of the chapter, Ciaran approaches Theo and tells her that Grammy Cahill and the rest of their Irish family are rich, but Theo retorts that they are poor. Ciaran then says, “Well, here’s what’s what, Madam Scholar. There’s poor and there’s poor” (Corthron 306). He proceeds to show Theo his cousin’s boardinghouse, which is flooded often and smells bad, and Theo realizes the extent of her privilege (Corthron 307). Shortly afterwards, Theo and Ciaran take a carriage ride through Central Park, and Jamey, the driver, tells them that the experience is extremely expensive, proclaiming, “You know when the real customers have a carriage ride, one carriage ride, the fare could support a poor man and his family a year?” (Corthron 308). Theo and Ciaran are in disbelief, and Theo once again realizes the extent of her privilege, but in a completely different light. 

Between these two scenes, Corthron effectively educates both Theo and the reader about class divisions and conflict in roughly four short pages. Theo experiences the living conditions of the poorest of the poor, but she also has the brief opportunity to live the high life. I felt that this was a significant moment as Theo comes of age and starts to realize her financial place in society. She experiences disgust for the boardinghouse, and a different kind of disgust for those with the money to ride in Central Park carriages. Although her situation has not changed, readers are faced with a new duality, in which Theo can both be grateful for what she has and long for what she does not. This is very important in any coming-of-age novel because it presents a new complexity that accompanies maturity, but it also might come with confusion for such a young narrator. In this way, Corthron might be attempting to speak at a universal truth about guilt and privilege.