On Black Girl Innocence and Erasure

The Importance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Kyra Ann Dawkins, award-winning writer, author of The We and the They, coach, and all-around lovely human being has written the essay below amid a storm of national book bans. I had the privilege of making her acquaintance years ago in a church basement at Phillips Exeter Academy, and now have the distinct pleasure of introducing her to you here. Enjoy.

Stories make us. We all are as made up of the stories we tell and are told as we are of flesh, blood, and bone. Stories ground us into who we are and press us into our becoming. And in turn, our becoming often leads to more wisdom, maturity, and awareness. But what happens when people and systems thwart certain stories’ ability to mold us or even reach us? What happens when we are denied the chance to grapple with individual and collective trauma because that aspect of becoming makes “important people” feel uncomfortable or guilty? What happens when the protection of innocence is used as a thin veil for erasure? These questions shake me in the same way that stories make me– to my core. 

I watch in horror as some of the most formative books of my youth are stripped from school library shelves. In 2021 alone, the American Library Association reported a surging 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services, targeting 1597 books. Seeing numbers of that magnitude sometimes scare me so much that my thoughts doom-spiral into devastation. In my most pessimistic state, I see book bans as harbingers of an encroaching dystopia. Some people in power apparently believe that only certain stories are worth knowing and only certain people are worthy of knowing them. But then, admittedly, and perhaps ironically, a book that helped prepare me for these troubling times is often banned itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou pressed me into my becoming. And frankly, entities that ban this book and others like it want the caged bird, Maya Angelou, and me to be silenced. 

I remember the first time I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was nine years old. I read this first book out of Maya Angelou’s Autobiography series omnibus during the second quarter of fourth grade. I liked the weight of the thick book in my backpack. I loved how I felt like Maya Angelou took me seriously as a reader through her words, unlike some of the other authors in our school library. But let’s cut to the chase. Usually, when I tell people I was nine when I first read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, they gasp in shock or horror. Most of the people who do that mean well. This book is not for the faint of heart. And yet, I don’t regret reading it at nine years old. As painful as it was at times,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings showed me an honest story of a young Black girl like me leaning into her becoming against people and systems that used, abused, and tried to erase her. 

 One of the most visceral childhood memories I have is of reading about how eight-year-old Maya Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. I remember alarm bells ringing in my head as Mr. Freeman coaxed and groomed her. I remember my blood boiling and my stomach flipping inside out when Maya described her underwear after being violated. And most vividly, I remember sobbing myself to sleep, tears staining my Lil’ Bratz pillowcase, when I read that Maya didn’t speak for years because she thought using her voice had killed Mr. Freeman. My heart broke because I could see why she thought that, but even at nine years old, I knew she was wrong and that her voice was important. This book helped me see that my voice was important too. 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is banned from some school libraries in part because of these depictions of child sexual abuse. A lot of people might say that it is material that young people aren't mature enough to process. There is definitely some validity to this perspective. I am by no means saying that everyone should read  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings at nine years old. People develop physically, mentally, and emotionally at different rates. There is perhaps an innocence that needs to be maintained. But for me, this justification for book banning within frameworks of maturity, development, and innocence begs a deeper question: if Maya was eight years old when she experienced her trauma, how was I at nine years old too young to even read about it? Of course, this inquiry emerges in response to the adultification of Black girls. 

The erasure of Black girl innocence has historical roots too grotesquely gnarled and twisted for words. The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality published a comprehensive study on the adultification of Black girls in 2017 called “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood.”  The collected data indicates that adults perceive Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, particularly in the age range 5-14. In other words, Black girls are less worthy of being protected from harm and more culpable of doing harm, which is reflected in more severe punishments. Internalizing this atmospheric perception of culpability can keep so many Black girls from using their voices. That may have been what happened to Maya Angelou in those years of being silent. We have to know the signs of abuse and adultification to ward against them ever happening again. Maya Angelou’s story is one I needed to know for my own survival. I’m sure that is true for other Black girls and women like me too. 

 I know Maya Angelou is no longer with us in the flesh, but so much of what she's written has profoundly shaped my writing, reading, and ways of knowing. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings inspired me to read the remaining six books in Maya Angelou’s Autobiography series. I also read as many essays and poems by her as I could. “Still I Rise” is engraved somewhere deep within me. And I will never forget how Maya Angelou’s words aided me in my becoming and still do.

So, in the systemic erasure of individual and collective narratives of trauma through book banning, whose innocence is really being protected? Well, I can assure you it isn’t mine.

Kyra Ann Dawkins is a recent graduate from Columbia University in the City of New York, where she studied Medicine, Literature, and Society.

Much of her previous work, which includes largely scholastic essays, opinion editorials, and poems, can be found in The Plain Dealer, the Columbia Daily Spectator, Quarto Magazine, The Columbia Witness, the Columbia Explorations in Global Language Justice Blog, the LILAS Wellness Blog, and the Columbia Oral History Masters in Arts Blog to name a few places. She has also had the pleasure of serving as Opinion-Editorial Deputy Editor for the Columbia Daily Spectator and of being a ghostwriter for prominent community leaders in the Greater Cleveland Area.

Follow Kyra Ann on Twitter, Instagram ( @kyra_ann_writes_), or drop her a message and check out her latest and upcoming books at www.kyraanndawkins.org