Author Q&A

Your Blues Ain't Like Mine
by Bebe Moore Campbell

(Page 2 of 2)

My Blues, Your Blues, We All Got Blues
By Janine Yvette Gardner

The realities of racism effect each individual living in America in a different way. Whether the person realizes it or not, racism plays a part in how people view each other, how they treat each other, and how they live amongst each other.

Although the civil rights era seems a distant memory to those of us who were born years after it took place, the historical event of the Emmett Till murder and trial still represents many social issues that continue to occur within the United States of America. A young black boy plays a childish game that involves speaking to a white woman and receives the ultimate punishment for stepping outside of and threaten-ing an accustomed way of life. The symbolism of this case is reflective of the role men and women, both black and white, willingly or unwillingly play on the stage of the American South circa 1955 and hence present American society as a whole. The boundary lines that distinguish a black man from a white man, the inability to choose what you say and to whom you say it, puts unjust limitations on manhood. The racist attempts to justify and protect white womanhood and simultaneously remove any identification of black womanhood proved to be a major factor in the institutionalization of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and racist theories.

At the age of fourteen, Emmett Till decided to take control of his manhood by refusing to consent to the laws of the land that prohibited black men from having any interaction with white women. By taking control of his manhood, Emmett sacrifices his own life. Although his killers were found not guilty within the court of law, all of us are guilty of harboring feelings that are influenced by racial prejudice. Whether we choose to act on those feelings or choose to rectify them progresses the kind of world we live in. All of us have personal pain to share. Arguably, some experiences garner more hurt than others do, but the common thread is that pain is pain. Human beings have to learn from each other's experiences in order to create an environment that is fair to live in for everyone. We can at least make strides in the creation of this kind of society. There is a lot of work involved, and it is authors like Bebe Moore Campbell that remind us of what happens when we don't get involved. A critically acclaimed writer, Campbell's works span several years of social injustice and unrest. Your Blues Ain't Like Mine comes out of a place that was very significant to Campbell. Only five years old when the Emmett Till case took place, Campbell creates a fictionalized account of the murder, trial, and what happens to all the parties involved after it was all said and done. The underlying theme of this story is that each character, no matter how evil or good, has had his share of hurt and is allowed a certainamount of compassion and love. After all, we all have had our share of blues.

A Conversation with Bebe Moore Campbell

Janine Yvette Gardner: The tragic fate of Armstrong Todd reads identical to that of Emmett Till. Was that moment in America's history the influence for this novel? If so, why?

Bebe Moore Campbell: Absolutely. It was an event that haunted me. I was five when it happened. It was a historical event that was close to my own time. It haunted the entire black community. It was really one of the first publicized lynchings. Usually lynchings were clandestine affairs, very secretive. No one ever came forward. Here you had the killers after the trial confess to the murders. The fact that the boy was so young and the courage of his mother in making sure this wasn't some anonymous crime that no one ever heard about made it unique in black history. I think it catapulted us into the Civil Rights Era, because I don't think that it was a coincidence that, let's see that was in August, and then by December Rosa Parks was refusing to give up her seat on the bus.

Q: Lily Cox appears to be a one-dimensional character on the surface; a white female who is subservient to her husband and is content with being that. Yet, there is some complexity to her. What message are you trying to convey to readers about white females in the segregated South and the role they played (conscious or not) in the institutionalization of racism in America?

A: Well, usually what happened in the American South is that the subjugation of white women and harsh activist racism went hand in hand. White women were the excuse in many instances for the acting out of racism's harshest punishment to preserve and protect white womanhood. Black men were lynched, and so many of the times they were lynched is directly because they were accused of raping white women or indirectly because they challenged white authority in a way that would move them closer to being a sexual threat to white men. [For example] opening up a store that competed with a white man that put them in a position to earn more, which put them in a position to be more attractive to white females.

Q: So what role then would we as African American women play in that?

A: Well, we were raped, of course, with impunity throughout slavery and the post-Emancipation Proclamation Era. Until the Civil Rights acts of 1964, it was always open season on black women. Our honor was not taken seriously, which put black men in a position of always feeling ashamed that they couldn't defend us unless they were willing to pay with their lives. We were the loose and easy targets of racialized sexualization, while white women were put on a pedastal, which made the comparison more stark and made white women more desirable.

Q: So many characters make up this beautiful story. Which character did you enjoy getting to know the most and why?

A: Probably Lily. Lily is the one I expected least to empathize with. I saw the real life husband and wife. The wife was responsible for accusing Emmett Till. Her name was Carolyn Bryant. I saw footage of the trial of J.W. Milam and Mr. Bryant; they were half-brothers and they were the men who killed Emmett Till. The part I saw was when they were found innocent, and when the judge made the pronouncement they (Carolyn and Roy Bryant) kissed. It was an erotic kiss to me. What I thought was that this was a woman who was proud, saying to the world "I got a man who will kill for me." I wondered what was beneath the surface with her. What makes any woman need to say to the world "I got a man who will kill for me"? So when you go down a little deeper you see the molestation, a childhood that is deprived of anything . . . there have been more Miss Americas (or at least that use to be the case) from the state of Mississippi than any other state. They have really raised their women to be beautiful ornaments for a very long time. Here is a woman (Lily) who is damaged at an early age and then is brought up in this society where women are second-class citizens, these butterflies in a cage. So that was Lily. Then she runs into this black woman, Ida, who has a personal sense of independence, personal sense of soul, and she envies that because she realizes right away that she doesn't have it.

Q: As an African American female, I often slip into the mindset that our problems, our blues, are a lot harder than those of white females. The title Your Blues Ain't Like Mine suggest that someone feels his or her life is harder than someone else's. Whose "blues" is the title referring to?

A: I meant for the title to be ironic because I feel sometimes our blues are equally as hard as the other person's. I certainly feel that our blues are intertwined. In other words, Lily's blues of being a subjugated, molested white baby girl directly feed into Armstrong Todd's blues of being this murdered black boy which feeds into his mother's blues which feeds into Clayton Pinochet's blues of being a helpless white male. So it goes back and forth.

Q: I have noticed that you have used an event in American history that is the product of racial tension as the backdrop for at least two of your books (Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Brothers and Sisters). What did the writing of this book teach you about yourself and did it effect or change your perspective on race in America?

A: I think it taught me that my capacity to be generous to characters on a page is only an introduction to my capacity for healing and forgiveness in real life. And I still, as a human being, have a lot of work to do in that area.

Q: At the end of the novel, the younger generation is seeking wisdom from the older generation. Family has always been important to the African American community. Despite the chains of slavery and the institutionalization of racism, we somehow find a way to persevere by using our sorrow as an inspirational tool to keep moving forward. Why end the book this way?

A: Well, I wanted to end it with the realization that there is hard work that still has to be done. The hard work of Wydell going on a twelve-step program to shake his addiction. The hard work of his son W. T. moving away from delinquency and becoming a responsible adult. The responsibility of helping that young man shape his life was Wydell's; the responsibility of putting the family back together [was Wydell's]. So there is still a lot of work to be done. A lot of hope that it could be done, because the tools were in place. W. T. poses the question to his father, Wydell, "What did you useta sing?" Well if singing a song was what got you right and got you through then do that. "That" being symbolical of more than music but of religion, belief in a greater power, all those things. Do those things that will make you whole. Attempt to do those things that will make you whole.

Janine Yvette Gardner is an editorial assistant for Black Expressions Book Club and an associate editor for Black Issues Book Review magazine.

Excerpted from Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell Copyright © 1993 by Bebe Moore Campbell. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of three New York Times best sellers: Brothers and Sisters, Singing in the Comeback Choir, and What You Owe Me, which was also a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001. Her other works include the novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for literature.