I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.(The concept behind this quote is one of the reasons I started this blog).
-Audre Lorde
(pic jfki.fu-berlin)
I used to have a crush on Audre Lorde in college, even though she passed away while I was in high school. Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. What’s not to like about all of those descriptions of her? Yeah, the American one I would put at the end of my list (Read my first article about Colin Kaepernick for Black History Month Series to find out why I say this and why I, like Colin, can’t stand for a flag of a country that treats black and brown people as second class citizens, in which people, often law enforcement, are allowed to kill black people and get away with it.) I don’t just mention and link this post to get you to read another post of mine or to change the subject at all. In fact, I bring this up to highlight a view I’m sure Lorde would have supported.
…oppression is as American as apple pie…
I had just started my activism, and reading more about marginalized groups in our country, in college, and like many young people, I thought I could change the world. Yes, I’m a little more jaded now, but I think I could possibly change a few people, they go on to change a couple more, and so on, and possibly that could change the world. I was into civil rights issues for various groups of people. The disenfranchised; the modern proletariat. I was very active in feminism. I studied women’s (or womyn’s) studies, was involved in a feminist group, started a new feminist group (all be it for a class, but a passion for it was there, regardless) when the existing one group was starting to dwindle, and I was the Resource Librarian at the Women’s Center (not connected to the academic program), towards the end of my tenure at the University. It sucked that my depression got in the way of my attendance at that job sometimes, because I really liked it. Sorry JC if you read this! It wasn’t you. It was me. What is better than processing feminist books?! An interesting thing I just learned about Lorde was that she was a librarian. That would make sense since we have so much in common. In the class Black Women and other women’s studies classes I read books and writings by Lorde, as well as carried her collected works of poetry book around after I got a hold of it. If you read into her poetry, or at least some of her poems I thought it was obvious that Lorde was a lesbian. With my budding lesbian side progressing in theory in the day, and in practice at night (hey, you don’t learn stuff unless there is theory and practice studied and experienced together), with a fully developed straight side shoved down my throat, as well as with most people, from a young age already, I was especially interested in reading her erotic poems. But they had that kind of subtle eroticism, which still lends to a worthy literary lens. Because of all of these things I was into Lorde. Before I go into a little more detail about Lorde, and my experience with, and interest in her, I just want to let you know that Lorde had many inspiring quotes, as well as quotes that challenged the racism-homophobic-classist-patriarchal society which was needed then, and still quite essential for today! I will disburse them throughout this post, as you see I’ve started.
I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic
I mentioned I was interested in Audre Lorde’s feminism, but I didn’t mention that I was interested in her womanism as well. I wanted to get a chance to explain that first. A simple definition of the term “womanism”, coined by the writer Alice Walker is ‘black feminism’, but its more than that, which Walker explains much better.
Walker defined a "womanist" as a "black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, 'You acting womanish'", referring to grown-up behavior. The womanish girl exhibits willful, courageous, and outrageous behavior that is considered to be beyond the scope of societal norms. She goes on to say that a womanist is also:
A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or non-sexually. Appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility ... and women's strength. ... Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health ... Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit ... Loves struggle. Loves the folk. Loves herself. Regardless. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.”
Today I feel like womanism, which does not exclude, but is quite inclusive of feminist movements, would fall under the concept of intersectionality, which takes into account various minority or marginalized identities a person has such as Lorde being a woman, black, and a lesbian. (Later reading lead me to discover Lorde had already talked about intersectionality even though it was not something mentioned often in her time).
The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.
After being excited about writing about Lorde, I realized she was a little difficult to write about because I couldn’t nicely have a section about her feminist/womanist and lesbian activism, her civil rights activism, her writing, and her many messages about self-care, mainly through the context of activism. Self-care can be a form of activism. And because I couldn’t divide her into many subjects because of her intersectional theories and activism, I thought I would tell you a little about the different writings and activism she has done.
You are the one that you are looking for.
First a little about Lorde’s personal life. In 1962, Lorde married attorney Edwin Rollins. She and Rollins divorced in 1970 after having two children, Elizabeth and Jonathan. In 1966, Lorde became head librarian at Town School Library in New York City, where she remained until 1968.From 1977 to 1978, Lorde had a brief affair with the sculptor and painter Mildred Thompson. The two met in Nigeria in 1977 at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. Their affair ran its course during the time that Thompson lived in Washington, D.C. During her time in Mississippi she met Frances Clayton, a professor of psychology, who was to be her romantic partner until 1989. Lorde and her life partner, black feminist Dr. Gloria I. Joseph, resided together on Joseph's native land of St. Croix. Together they founded several organizations such as the Che Lumumba School for Truth, Women’s Coalition of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa, and Doc Loc Apiary.
Lorde has a collection of many writings. Much more than I had known. The more well-known books of hers are (or the ones I have heard more about at least) Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, Sister Outsider, and the Cancer Journals.
Zami, published in 1983, which I read in college and remember enjoying, is an autobiography. It started a new genre that the author calls biomythography, which combines history, biography, and myth. "Zami" is "a Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers," Carriacou being the Caribbean island from which her mother immigrated. The interesting thing is that, from reading the summary of the book I only remember the parts towards the end which are about her lesbian relationships, which I needed to read because I didn’t have many examples of that in literature at the time. To give you a synopsis of the book before the part I remember of her different lesbian relationships here it is: Lorde born in 1934, grew up in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s. Her parents were West Indian. Lorde was legally blind from a young age. She had two sisters, but didn’t seem to get much love or attention from her family. Lorde experienced racism such as a Landlord hanging himself for renting to black people and on a trip to D.C., in which Jim Crow Laws were alive and active they were not allowed to eat ice cream at a lunch counter. People would sometimes spit at them, but as an example of her mother trying to protect her from racism, she commented about the people spitting being crude people. She went to Hunter College High School where she became a literary editor of a school magazine and started writing poetry herself. Lorde worked at a factory, got pregnant, had an abortion, and then started to date women. Yes, there’s more. So, read it.
Silence and invisibility go hand in hand with powerlessness.
Sister Outsider is a collection of essays and speeches. She wrote from the perspective of her various identities: Black woman, lesbian, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist writer. It is considered a classic reading of Lorde’s. In fifteen essays and speeches dating from 1976 to 1984, Lorde explores the complexities of intersectional identity, while explicitly drawing from her personal experiences of oppression to include: sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and ageism. The book examines a broad range of topics, including love, self-love, war, imperialism, police brutality, coalition building, and violence against women.
In the Cancer Journals, published in 1980, Lorde writes about her struggles with breast cancer. She relates this issue to her strong advocacy for certain social issues, like feminism, lesbian rights and civil rights. The book consists of an introductory chapter and three chapters, each featuring excerpts from her diaries. This book is easier to understand after understanding Lorde’s issues she was passionate for, whether she showed it through her writing or activism. Even though these things I mentioned are vital to understand, one must understand the experience of having cancer outside of her literary work. Her cancer battle serves as a catalyst for other writings that came after her diagnosis.
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.
There is so much more to learn about Lorde. She lived in Berlin for a while, she was in various activist and literary groups and worked in varied positions. After surviving breast cancer Lorde developed liver cancer six years later. She died in 1992 at the age of 58.
And as I understand, people don’t want to read a blog that is too long. I get general complaints such as, "Hope, you are too wordy. A text msg doesn't have to be a treatise, and a blog post doesn't have to be a book," so I end here, with a few more quotes.
Your silence will not protect you.
For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.
Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
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