While writing her first book, Krieger School sociologist
Katrina Bell McDonald had in mind a very specific title — a
title that name-dropped the book's inspiration — only
to have her publisher's legal department nix the famous
moniker at the last minute. If all had gone according to
plan, Embracing Sisterhood: Class, Identity and
Contemporary Black Women (Rowan & Littlefield, August
2006) would have given a titular hug to a very specific
icon: Oprah Winfrey.
The book's premise is that the way that nearly all
black women — regardless of their income, education
or social status — embrace Winfrey is emblematic of
the value they place on sisterhood. Winfrey's humble
beginnings also speak to black women's collective sense of
pride for their determination to overcome adversity,
McDonald says.
"What do you think of Oprah?" became a springboard
question McDonald posed during her fieldwork in locations
across Baltimore. She talked to her subjects in their homes
and businesses, seeking to determine the level of unity and
class discord among today's African-American women.
It doesn't matter that none of the 88 African-American
women McDonald surveyed will ever be able to relate to
Winfrey's fortune or fame, she says, because that's not
really why they admire her: All of the interviewees, from
high-powered executives to inmates at the Baltimore City
Detention Center, told McDonald that they admire Winfrey
because she triumphed over adversity to become a household
name.
The Gazette sat down with McDonald in her Mergenthaler
office to talk about her research, which found that
African-American women are really much more alike in their
sentiments about black womanhood than many of the images
portrayed in movies and television shows would have us
believe.
Q: Does everyone embrace Oprah?
A: Virtually everyone — black, white, Hispanic
or Asian — holds her in great esteem. They may not
like certain things she does or says here or there, but
they can't deny she's an amazing force. And it's my
impression that if any one of them had a chance to meet her
face to face, they'd be running to her. ... Either they see
her as an amazing businesswoman, they see her as an amazing
success story, they relate to her because of some of her
specific challenges, particularly in childhood, but they
can't deny that she has made some amazing choices as a
career woman, and just as a person, that are just
phenomenal.
Q: Do you think black women look at Oprah with a
particularly critical eye?
A: Black women have a different approach to who she
is because she represents something different to us than
she does to other women. She's a sister. She's someone who
is in the family, and just like families wrestle with what
we expect of each other, we wrestle with her over what we
want her to represent.
Q: You conducted your interviews here in Baltimore,
where Winfrey got her start in television. Do you think
that made a difference in the responses you got from your
subjects?
A: Being in Baltimore was particularly intriguing
because there were a few women who recalled seeing her when
they were little. She would come to their high schools, or
they would see her out and about, or their mothers knew her
maybe from the hair salon or church. People who have lived
here a long time remember her presence very much and have
very detailed sentiments.
Q: While reading your book, I found myself thinking
that to be a good sociologist, you have to be a good
reporter. How did you perfect your interviewing skills?
A: People tend to trust me pretty quickly. Some of
that I'm sure comes from my communications background,
because my first two degrees are in communications. And I
also grew up in a singing family, so I've been singing
since I was 3 on big stages all over the country. As a very
young girl, I learned stage presence, and I learned how to
draw people in through music, and I think it just
translates somehow into this other endeavor, this
interviewing stuff I do. I'm also a violinist, [and] there
is something about stage performance and learning how to
deliver to people to draw them in. ... For the most part
people are so giving and want to tell me their stories. I
find that I can usually get what I need if I just, you
know, have a conversation as if we've always known each
other.
Q: How did you hone in on hair salons and the city
detention center as the places to conduct your
fieldwork?
A: I chose the prisons because I knew that there was
a high correlation between imprisonment and low social
status. For the working and middle class group, in part I
tried to go through the hair salons, and I went to several
of them and one in particular allowed me to be an
appointment taker. When women would come in for their
appointments or to ask me about openings, I would say, "I
know this is really strange, but I'm actually Dr. McDonald
from Johns Hopkins University [and] I'm working on a
project," and sometimes they'd let me come back another day
and interview them while they were there for their
appointment. Most times, however, they allowed me to come
to their homes or workplaces.
Q: You mentioned that you've had a longtime interest
in the ways class shapes relationships among
African-Americans. What did your research reveal to you?
A: I fully expected class to be a sharp divider on
all sorts of issues, including the Oprah question. And then
the data didn't hold up. Yes, there are elements of class
operating throughout here, but it's not so powerful that it
swamps what is clearly a universal sentiment about black
womanhood. It's not uncommon for black women to have huge
self-esteem. Even if in their personal lives they may
suffer blows to their self-esteem, they still can somehow
come back to "but I'm a black woman!" At the same time,
there's this amazing consistency in the use of the word
"struggle" to talk about what it means to be a black woman.
So it's the self-esteem that comes from survival from the
struggle, and it was very consistent across different
groups.
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