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You are here: Home / Politics / Tea Cake

Tea Cake

August 13th, 2017 by Sallie Bingham in Politics 15 Comments

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

A dear friend commented yesterday on the number of white, college-educated women who voted for Trump.

Why?

This is the question we have all been asking ourselves for the past six months. These women are not part of the disgruntled white working class—which seems to be made up mostly of partly-educated out-of-work men. But there is something about this man, Donald Trump, that draws us in spite of the incongruities, that makes his misogyny, vulgarity and ignorance seem not only amusing, perhaps somehow alluring.

Trying to find an answer, or answers, I turn to the character of Tea Cake in Zora Neale Hurston’s remarkable, Their Eyes Were Watching God, originally published in 1937 and the subject of an admiring essay by Alice Walker in the March 1975 issue of Ms.

There is something about Donald Trump that makes his misogyny, vulgarity and ignorance seem not only amusing, perhaps somehow alluring.

Tea Cake erupts into Janie’s life when she is an overworked, underappreciated wife laboring in the fields on a southern plantation and running her husband’s little store. Janie is just about ready for a change when Tea Cake saunters into the store.

“Good evening, Mis’ Starks,” he said with a shy grin as if they had a good joke together. She was in favor of the story that was making him laugh before she even heard it.”

Intimacy is established in the first two minutes—the intimacy of a soon-to-be-shared joke. Does anyone remember the intimacy of “little hands”?

Tea Cake then buys a pack of cigarettes and asks, “You got a lil piece of fire over there, lady?”

They both laughed…

He flatters Janie by proposing a game of checkers—“You looks hard to beat”. When he tells her his name, she is already won, replying “Tea Cake…You sweet as all that?” She laughed and he gave her a little cut-eye look to get her meaning….”

Things proceed rapidly after that: Tea Cake carries Janie away on a train, promising to marry her—which he does—“And such another hugging and kissing and carrying-on you never saw…”

Do we long so for excitement, as Janie did, for the big promises– one of which at least Tea Cake fulfills—for the spurious intimacy of vulgarity that we are as dazed as she was after the hugging and kissing and carrying on?

When Tea Cake drifts off to sleep, “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

I don’t know if any of the women who voted for Trump felt that same soul-crushing love, but its first evidence is the abandonment of our own best interests.

It’s only a few days before Janie tells him where she has hidden her money. Tea Cake takes it and disappears. Janie begins to be anxious, but then Tea Cake comes back and explains it all away. Bus “She began to be snappish a little”—and jealous: “A little chunky girl took to picking a play out of Tea Cake in the fields and the quarters.”

Snappish, a little. I’m not the only woman feeling snappish now: “Fire and Fury”—perhaps that should be our boast, rather than the President’s.

A wise woman whose name I didn’t catch this morning on an NPR interview show asked, “Are you inwardly powerful, but weak in outward support? Or are you inwardly weak, but powerful in outer support?”

Most women, blessed by the moon and the goddess, feel our power inwardly but lack the outside support that might make us less hesitant to take controversial stands. I wonder if this question occurs to Maxine Waters, the long-time Democrat in the House representing Los Angeles, who has promised to “take the gloves off” with the president and is waiting for outside support. I hope she will be only the first of her fellow Democrats to blast Congressman Ben Ray Luján and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for deciding that the party will support anti-choice candidates.

Probably we will all sigh and figure that the president, like Tea Cake, is just a little boy who needs our protection. And our fellow Democrats will agree.

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In Politics 17 Favorites of 2017 Zora Neal Hurston Donald Trump

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Jacquelyn Carruthers on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 7:08 am

    Amen!

    Reply
  2. Carol M. Johnson says

    August 13th, 2017 at 8:22 am

    Dear God in Heaven, what a repulsive vision. An egocentric fat old man with long stringy hair, and the mentality of a fifth grader? Where’s the allure? Never felt that desperate.

    Reply
  3. Jacquelyn Carruthers on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 8:24 am

    He is going to start a war…

    Reply
  4. Anna Rae Foster on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 9:06 am

    Sallie he may be alluring to you a wealthy trust fund baby looking for big tax breaks of the rich, but to intelligent working class women- he is anything but…

    Reply
  5. David Lawyer on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 10:56 am

    He is truly the easiest one of us to hate. Hopefully we can give up the fantasy we need another to deem us lovable and worthy….as the story illustrates. When we can like and love ourselves I think we can begin feeling compassion for such deeply wounded brethren.

    Reply
  6. Suzy Martin on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 11:10 am

    Succinctly describes 45

    Reply
  7. Judy Dostal on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    Yuck!

    Reply
  8. Barbara Anderson on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 3:42 pm

    Disgusting human being

    Reply
  9. Deborah Henderson on Facebook says

    August 13th, 2017 at 4:15 pm

    Obviously some who posted did not read the article, merely the header. I don’t know if the Tea Cake comparison is the answer to the question, “Why did so many white college educated women vote for Trump?” Oh well, since any and all possibilities leave us shaking our heads with disbelief and disgust…

    Reply
    • Jacquelyn Carruthers on Facebook says

      August 14th, 2017 at 5:36 am

      You know my daughter has said the same thing.

      Reply
    • Barbara Anderson on Facebook says

      August 14th, 2017 at 9:01 pm

      I read it and just find him to disgusting to ponder

      Reply
  10. Juliana Klein on Facebook says

    August 14th, 2017 at 6:38 am

    A curious read to ponder . . .

    Reply
  11. Marilyn McLaughlin on Facebook says

    August 14th, 2017 at 10:17 am

    I fear his hatred. I want my children and grandchildren to know peace in their lives.tred. I want my chilren to live in peace.

    Reply
  12. Robert H. Miller on Facebook says

    August 14th, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    Hardly.

    Reply
  13. Vincent Mallon on Facebook says

    August 14th, 2017 at 8:37 pm

    Insightful

    Reply

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