Using either Zora Neale Hurston’s Sweat or Hughes’ “The Blues I’m Playing,” discuss how both race (Blackness) and gender (femaleness) overcome/overturn the oppressive social hierarchy.
In other words, you’ll be answering the following question(s): How do the Black female protagonists achieve this outcome (of overturning the social hierarchy)? Is it accidental? Do they wield intellectual power? Sexual power? Artistic power? Communal support?