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3. Etta Mae Johnson
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Women of Brewster Place, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Poverty
Sexism and Female Relationships
Sexuality
Motherhood
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Kiswana, from her sixth-floor apartment in Brewster Place, can see over the wall to the flourishing commercial district beyond. She daydreams about what she sees until she catches sight of a well-dressed woman approaching Brewster Place—her mother, Mrs. Browne. Kiswana grabs a newspaper and circles job advertisements at random, noting with annoyance how Mrs. Browne inspects her dilapidated building.
Since the wall represents the barrier that structural racism poses to Black economic well-being, Kiswana’s ability to see over the wall from her apartment suggests a) that she has the political vision to imagine a world beyond structural racism and/or b) that she comes from a different class background from Brewster Place’s other residents, most of whom are mired in poverty. At minimum, Mrs. Browne’s nice clothes and fastidious reaction to Kiswana’s apartment building suggest that the second option is true—Kiswana’s family is richer than most of the characters in the novel thus far.
Themes
When Mrs. Browne enters the building, Kiswana rushes around tidying—in part to hide that her boyfriend Abshu slept over. The memory of Abshu’s lips on her feet distracts her: he has a foot fetish, and she changes her toenail polish every week now. Mrs. Browne knocks and calls for “Melanie.” Kiswana, annoyed, opens the door and says she didn’t realize the visitor was for her, since no one calls her that anymore. Mrs. Browne, entering, replies it’s funny Kiswana would forget what people called her for 23 years.
Kiswana wants to hide evidence that she is sexually active from her mother, implying that her mother would attempt to police or punish her daughter’s sexuality. When Mrs. Browne calls Kiswana “Melanie,” meanwhile, it suggests that Kiswana has changed her name away from her generically “white-sounding” birth name for political reasons. Mrs. Browne’s insistence on continuing to call her Melanie thus implies a political disagreement between mother and daughter.
Themes
Mrs. Browne says she thought Kiswana might be out job-hunting. Kiswana replies that she’s scouring the paper for jobs to apply to tomorrow. Mrs. Browne picks up the paper and asks why Kiswana circled the “fork-lift operator” ad. Kiswana says that she meant to circle something else. Mrs. Browne accuses Kiswana of daydreaming. Kiswana defensively denies it: she’s a woman now, not a child. Kiswana and Mrs. Browne sit. Mrs. Browne mentions Kiswana’s brother Wilson came by. Kiswana, who borrowed $20 from Wilson two days prior, guesses he told their mother. She announces she borrowed $20 from him—but now her unemployment checks have come, so it’s fine.
Kiswana’s defensive disclosure that she borrowed $20 from her brother hints that Mrs. Browne’s wealth and Kiswana’s lack of money are a source of friction between them. Thus far, Kiswana and Mrs. Browne’s relationship contrasts with previous relationships in the novel. Whereas support and solidarity have characterized female relationships like Mattie and Eva’s or Mattie and Etta’s, conflict and irritation seem to characterize Kiswana and Mrs. Browne’s. And whereas Mattie was an overindulgent mother who spoiled her child, Kiswana reacts to Mrs. Browne as though she expects her mother’s constant criticism.
Themes
Mrs. Browne says that Wilson’s wife is pregnant again. Kiswana snarks that she doesn’t see how the wife can sleep with “dishrag” Wilson. Kiswana resents him because in college, when she was discovering Blackness and protesting, he acted like a square. Mrs. Browne points out that Wilson has a college degree, a law degree, and a good job. Kiswana says: “not like me, huh?” Mrs. Browne asks why Kiswana wants to fight. She just wanted to see the apartment, which she thinks is decorated nicely. Kiswana thaws under the praise. Then Mrs. Browne stammeringly asks whether Kiswana will keep her large-breasted reproduction of a Yoruba goddess on the table like that. Kiswana, amused at her mother’s discomfort, lies that she’ll hide the statue.
Kiswana calls her brother Wilson a “dishrag” because he is insufficiently political: whereas college introduced Kiswana to radical Black politics and protesting, Wilson simply used college as a stepping-stone to economic security. Wilson’s choices may imply that to obtain economic security under conditions of structural racism, Black people have to ignore or at least not protest the racism that affects them—protesting may be the right thing to do, but it doesn’t pay. Meanwhile, Mrs. Browne’s reaction to the large-breasted statue reveals her discomfort with overt sexuality.
Themes
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Mrs. Browne asks why Kiswana won’t get a phone so her family can call. Kiswana says she can’t afford the $75 deposit. Mrs. Browne offers to loan her the money. Kiswana refuses the loan: Mrs. Browne never lets Kiswana pay her back. Mrs. Browne accuses Kiswana of selfishness, refusing to take a phone so her family won’t worry about her living among “these people.” Kiswana retorts that she and “these people” are all Black and that poor people live like this.
Despite Mrs. Browne’s criticisms of Kiswana, her desire that Kiswana get a phone reveals that her criticisms are based in love and worry: she wants to know that Kiswana is safe. Her worries about Kiswana’s safety may be based on negative stereotypes about poor people and in particular poor Black people, whom she pejoratively calls “these people.” In response, Kiswana defiantly identifies with the other poor Black residents of Brewster Place.
Themes
Mrs. Browne says that Kiswana isn’t poor. Kiswana replies that Mrs. Browne has a rich husband, but she doesn’t. Mrs. Browne snaps that Kiswana could afford a better apartment if she hadn’t dropped out of college. When Kiswana says college was “bourgie,” Mrs. Browne tells her that the “black revolutionaries” she looked up to graduated college, got good jobs, and would never live in Brewster Place. Kiswana asks how her mother could disparage “the Movement […] because some people sold out.”
Kiswana is right that her mother having money isn’t exactly the same as her having money. Yet Kiswana is in a fundamentally different economic position than other Brewster Place residents due to her family’s wealth: in real economic difficulty, her rich relatives could help her. Other Brewster Place residents like Mattie and Etta simply don’t have those social resources or connections.
Themes
Mrs. Browne denies that she’s disparaging the Movement: she believes in progress, but not revolution. People have to “fight within the system.” She says that Kiswana could do more good as a civil liberties lawyer than a temp in Brewster Place. Kiswana argues that in Brewster Place she can understand Black people’s problems in a way that “white brainwashing” in higher education would prevent her from doing—and in a way that rich Black people in Mrs. Browne’s neighborhood don’t.
Mrs. Browne and Kiswana are arguing for two different visions of political change. When Mrs. Browne argues that people should “fight within the system,” she is arguing for incremental reforms and slow but steady progress. Kiswana’s response associates incrementalism with “white brainwashing”: by implication, she believes that social change should be immediate and radical.
Themes
Mrs. Browne accuses Kiswana of “trying to be what [she’s] not.” Kiswana accuses Mrs. Browne of being ashamed of her Blackness. Mrs. Browne jumps up and says that her grandmother was Iroquois, her grandfather was a free Black man, and her father was a Bajan sailor—“proud people” who taught Mrs. Browne that Blackness is a fact, not something to praise or insult. It hurt Mrs. Browne when Kiswana changed her name: “Melanie” was her grandmother, who used a shotgun to save her son from a white lynch mob. And Mrs. Browne swore she’d raise her children so no one could make them ashamed—which isn’t about her Blackness but about “being a mother.”
When Mrs. Browne says Kiswana is “trying to be what she’s not,” context suggests she means that Kiswana is pretending to be working-class or poor when she comes from an upper-middle-class background. Kiswana associates poverty with Blackness due to the economic oppression of Black people in the U.S.; as a result, when Mrs. Browne questions Kiswana’s voluntary poverty, Kiswana takes it as a criticism of her Blackness and claims that Mrs. Browne is ashamed of their family being Black. Mrs. Browne’s lengthy response makes clear that she is not ashamed of her race. She simply doesn’t associate being African-American either with poverty or with repudiating names like “Melanie.” Moreover, she claims that her motherly love for Kiswana has helped Kiswana become the kind of proud adult she now is.
Themes
Kiswana can’t meet Mrs. Browne’s eyes—until Mrs. Browne tells her not to back down from anyone, even her mother. They hug. Mrs. Browne says she’s longing to take off her fancy shoes. She removes one and massages her foot. Kiswana notices her mother’s red toenail polish and asks about it. When Mrs. Browne evasively admits that Kiswana’s father talked her into it, Kiswana realizes that her father has a foot fetish and feels closer to her mother—though she swears never to be conservative like her. After Mrs. Browne leaves, Kiswana finds $75 shoved in her couch. She’s about to run after her mother and return it—but doesn’t.
Kiswana and Mrs. Browne have been fighting about politics for the majority of their interaction, yet once Kiswana realizes that her mother has a sex life like hers, she suddenly sees her mother’s humanity more fully and feels an emotional bond to her. Kiswana’s reaction suggests that sexuality can be a life-affirming and bonding force—when it isn’t being harshly policed by conservative cultures. Mrs. Browne has implicitly left Kiswana $75 so that Kiswana can install a telephone in her apartment; Kiswana’s decision not to return the money suggests that she will install a telephone, symbolically keeping lines of communication open between herself and her mother despite their sometimes fractious relationship.
Themes
