In Ali’s blog post titled “An Exception Not the Rule,” she grabbles with a problem that I found very disconcerting in Kiswana Browne’s chapter. Why would Kiswana think that choisng poverty would be a way to better the lives of African American women?
I actually think that Kiswana’s move into Brewster Place is more a rebellion to her family’s rich lifestyle. She does not feel like she can ever live up to their expectations. This is especially apparent in the passage when her mother comes to visit her apartment. At one point Kiswana snaps and yells, “No, Mama, You’re not poor. And what you have and I have are two totally different things. I don’t have a husband in real estate with a five-figure income and a home in Linden Hills – you do. What I have is a weekly unemployment check and an overdrawn checking account at United Federal. So this studio on Brewster is all I can afford” (83). Kiswana is definitely trying to distinguish herself as an individual away from her childhood self.
Ali brings attention to the controversial reason that Kiswana has pushed away her family. She writes, “Kiswana wants a better world for the African community, with rights and equality, but as her mother reminds her, how do you make the world better when you can't make it better for yourself? Priorities are skewed in Brewster Place, Kiswana needs to open her eyes and realize that Brewster Place isn't somewhere you hang out, it is a place you get stuck in and never escape.” I find it very hard to grapple with the fact that Kiswana places herself in this situation as a means of understanding her people’s problems, but does not create a plan to create change for them. With the resources she has been blessed with I would have hoped that she could have channeled her lofty ideas into more productive modes of change.
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