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Article: Early black women playwrights and the dual liberation motif. (Black Women's Culture Issue)
- Article from:
- African American Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 African American Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the introduction to the section of his Black Theater USA anthology entitled "Early Plays by Black Women," James V. Hatch recalls
Eldridge Cleaver's observation about the myth of the strong black woman. "He [the white man] turned the black woman into a strong self-reliant Amazon and deposited her in his kitchen--that's the secret of Aunt Jemima's bandana." Question: Do these women playwrights paint true portraits of black women? (136)
Hatch may mute the explosive potential of the statement with a final question, but he does not defuse it. He presumably wants to bring the cultural validity of the "strong black woman's" staged presence into question, by ...