Generational trauma affects on Family Systems

    In Sing, Unburied, Sing, the author Jesmyn Ward writes a story based on African American family dynamics and the struggles from past and present racism. In this novel, we see how the effects of violence caused by slavery and racism continue to affect African American families in the South. The author achieves this portrayal of violence through flashbacks, death, ghosts, and the three different generations within the main character's family. 

    The novel discusses the family dynamic of an African American family in Mississippi from the perspective of Leonie, the mother of Jojo and Makayla, and from the son of Jojo. From the start of the book, we can see how the family uses physical punishment to discipline their children. The physical abuse is normalized by Jojo when it comes from Pa and he is shown to respect him and look up to him. However, when the abuse comes from Leonie and his father Micheal, he feels angry, upset, and also afraid. This attitude from Jojo about the abuse comes partially from the accepted use of abuse in African American families. His dislike of the abuse from his parents, however, comes more from the abuse being used as an outlet for his own parent's anger instead of for something that he or his sister actually has done. When Pa disciplined Jojo in the past it was clear that Jojo had done something wrong and that the beating was because of his wrong actions. However, when his parents beat him and his sister it is out of their own anger and emotional dysregulation. We see Jojo’s realization of this when Micheal beats his sister Kayla when she is upset about the burning smell of bacon. Micheal threatens Kayla when she is on the floor trying to get away from the smell. He states, “If you don’t get off that floor right now, I’m going to whip you, you hear?” (228). Jojo later responds “You ain’t have to do that” (228) and that he hadn’t told her. This is the first time we see Jojo standing up against physical abuse in his family and in doing so recognizes the parents hadn’t told her of the consequences clearly before she was upset and in an emotional state. Along with this, we see later that Leonie hits Jojo right after Mam had died because she was upset that he wasn’t comforting her and was instead blaming her for Mam’s death. This shows how violence continues to affect the family from within even when white people are not present to cause it. The reaction to physically act when upset comes from this generational trauma in the South, where slavery and racism were able to brew violence as an acceptable response for anger.