A Short Story by Chandra Brooks

Описание: "Monday" frames the narrator within the context of a world at war with Black children. A world where her image is not recognized or validated. Where she can neither be perceived as being beautiful or as human and thus entitled to having feelings or a safe existence. A world where she has to assimilate and appropriate others cultural references to become visible. As the writings on the day progress, illuminating prose is built upon and developed which explain the circumstances of her birth, her family constellation and the social situation she invites the reader to witness. A social situation which is anchored in the story of Black Americans, slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, The New Jim Crow Era and the present colonial. This is all woven together through the incorporation of a wide variety of sources. The ancient and classical sources are from Greek Mythology moving forward into Old Testament references and embellishing these with writings from Dante’s Inferno. Geographical references are linked to authors like Langston Hughes and Mark Twain. Both authors came from Missouri, but from divergent perspectives and backgrounds created by race and class. This landscape is brought to life by conflating it with fantasy writers such as Octavio Butler, J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan. Personal experiences are made painfully visual by exploring the narrator’s adolescent health issues and the violence of racism and prejudice through vivid medical encounters. Encounters which do not express gore or medicalization, but which share emotion tangibly. Lastly, conversations on love which explore the Black present-colonial family and romantic love are delivered through the writings of such disparate voices as that of Tony Morrison and Jane Austen.