SOURCE: "Making Generations in Jacobs, Larsen, and Hurston: A Genealogy of Black Women's Writing," in American Literature, Vol. 70, No. 2, June, 1998, pp. 365-95.

In the following excerpt, Barbeito examines the impact of slavery and racial politics on "black female sexuality" as explored by Harriet Jacobs in her writings.

"The important thing is making generations…. And that['s] what makes the evidence. And that's what makes the verdict."

"Procreation. That could also be a slave-breeder's way of thinking."—Gayl Jones, Corregidora

The lines from Gayl Jones's Corregidora identify a formative trope in black women's writing that links the "making of generations," the black female sexual and procreative body, to a history of slavery. "Making generations" in the context of a history of slavery is both "evidence" and "verdict," a sign and symptom of slavery that generates both a repetition and revision of that history. The lines from Jones's text can...