Take Back Your Life: Virtues to Live By

Abstract

Laughing out loud, joking about odd family characteristics, and finding out how family recipes came to the kitchen table in the first place are traditions generally associated with African and African American family culture. However, when it comes to discussing how trauma, violence, and abuse can impact family dynamics, a silence often weaves its way into family histories. African American family culture does not always allow for open conversation about the painful legacy of slavery, the sorrow that accompanies oppression, or the suffering that can be caused by intracommunal and family abuse. While religious settings, healing services, and faith communities can serve as safe places where stories of trauma can be released, silences can be broken, and survivors find the right and courage to come to voice, “family secrets” are often hushed in the home. In an attempt to save the next generation from having to endure the pain of these secrets, often elders in the community or people in the family make a decision not to tell. Echoing Audre Lorde’s sentiment, “your silence will not protect you,”1 Alice Walker’s essays, short stories, and novels provide examples of uncovering family secrets and spilling truths about African American communities. Claiming that ignoring, hiding, or repressing the pain of trauma suffered by so many survivors in the community is an ineffective strategy and serves only to further harm, Walker’s writings “rip off the scab,” so to speak, of collective memories of violence, pain, and trauma.