Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a Black American lesbian feminist poet, mother, socialist and cancer survivor. She wrote 11 books of poetry and was part of the Black Arts movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. These days, though, she is probably best known for “Sister Outsider” (1984), a book of essays often used in women’s studies at universities.
As a Black lesbian feminist socialist, she found herself at the wrong end of most of the isms that shape US society: racism, homophobia, sexism, capitalism, etc. She saw them as part of the same many-headed beast:
“… the Black male consciousness must be raised to the realization that sexism and woman-hating are critically dysfunctional to his liberation as a Black man because they arise out of the same constellation that engenders racism and homophobia.”
Likewise, most socialist countries are racist and sexist.
She looked at the root: how people think about differences.
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
Our differences are treasures – like how jazz grew out of African music and European music (my example). But we are made to think of differences as a bad thing, as something to “tolerate” or be ashamed of. We get drawn into “horizontal hostility” – like Black men against Black women – instead of broad-based vertical ones that would change society for the better. We wind up fighting over crumbs. Divide and conquer.
She did not begin to understand this till she left the US:
“I’d always had the feeling I was strange, different, that there was something wrong with me … In Mexico I learned to walk upright, to say the things I felt. I became conscious that I hadn’t the courage to speak up.”
In fighting racism and sexism, too often Black men and White women wind up copying White men. But copying one’s oppressor only leads to more oppression:
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
Her parents came to New York from the Caribbean, from Barbados and Grenada, to make some money, but then got stuck in the US because of the Great Depression. She grew up in Harlem, at 142nd and Lenox. She did not speak till age four – but learned to read that same year, dropping the y from her first name. She learned to read at the public library that once stood where the Schomburg Center now stands. In time she became a librarian herself, then a well-known poet, then an English professor.
She joined the Harlem Writers Guild. Langston Hughes saw her promise, but she never felt accepted there because of their homophobia.
One night she went to see some of her students sing at Carnegie Hall. When they were singing “What the World Needs Now is Love”, they were suddenly stopped: news had just come in that Martin Luther King had been killed. Duke Ellington started to cry. The chorus did not know what to do but to sing the song again – in tears.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Welcome to Black Women’s History Month 2016!
- Audre Lorde: Eye to Eye – one of the essays in “Sister Outsider”.
- Harlem
- June Jordan
- Langston Hughes: The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
- RFK on the death of MLK
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I’m not fond of women who call themselves black feminist. They tend to believe black men are somehow oppressing them without the help of any institutions. They accuse all black men of hating black women, while hating black men themselves. And you can’t argue with them. They rather fight with pure emotion than use any type of logic in an argument (emotion is ok, as long as you’re being logical)
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@kiwi
I was afraid someone would accuse me of subscribing to that stereotype. I’m not talking about women, or even black women, though. I am talking about my experiences with black feminist in particular.
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@kiwi
No i am not. I am done talking about this with you.
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“She did not speak till age four”
It’s not 100% beyond reasonable doubt, but many records, including very reliable ones, suggest that Einstein didn’t speak until age four either (his first words supposedly being something along the lines of “this soup needs more salt”).
Other than that… Whoa! I pretty much only knew the name “Audre Lorde”, but now I have to read up on her a lot more. Seems like a very interesting person!
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A very interesting article. This may seem of topic or bordering on shifting the conversation, but I’ll only make one mention of this since it stood out to me. I had no idea that Audre Lorde was half Grenadian. As someone who is also half Grenadian it is always intriguing to see or read about someone of Grenadian decent who has made an impact in some way shape or form. I would like to see more article that show the political, cultural, social and intellectual links between the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean since this is still an area that is under-researched at present.
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This post and the previous post on Audre Lorde are both brief but powerful. Sometimes five hundred words feels to the brain what a bag of chips feel to the stomach.
I appreciated the commentary in the middle…dip for the chips.
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Black men can and do oppress black women. How? Because black men are still men and black women are still women. All men benefit from male privilege and engage in sexism. Black men just think they can get away with it because they face racism.
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I agree, I think that sometimes there is a danger of using the oppression that Black men face to obscure and silence the misogyny that Black women experience from Black men. It assumes that one can’t be oppressive if they are being oppressed which in turn places a limit on the extent to which full equality among Black people in general can be achieved.
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I have to honest I have to do a lot mental gymnastics trying to understand intersectionality it’s all mixed up race and gender politics and probably ageism and ableism. All these “isms”.
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*I have to be honest * ^^^ typo
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@ Joan
I agree. One “ism” doesn’t justify another “ism”.
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Stopped reading. Please post black women who will not sell out black people in order to get the same privileges as rich, East Coast white women. Oh, and SHOWER FOREVA (blows vuvzela)
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That quote of hers about “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Sounds like she was a revolutionary.
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“In fighting racism and sexism, too often Black men and White women wind up copying White men. But copying one’s oppressor only leads to more oppression:”
I was reading another one of your Audre Lord posts where you talked about how she directed her anger at racism at other black women.
I believe white women and black men do the same. They try to exert their power, affirm their humanity and superiority by oppressing black women. Not just black women, all poc in the case of white women and all women in the case of Black men. But black women occupy the lowest rung in society. There are levels to this. The oppression coming from the “top” is compounded.
I need to read Andrew Lord’s stuff. My full awareness of intersectionality started on this blog. I saw how often ppl that were completely against racism embraced sexism with the same arguments they deemed wrong when given in support of racism. Most of us want to be free. For some of us freedom means freedom to oppress just as many people as white men.
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I hope I do not veer into a sentimental ramble. Have a million thoughts and can’t seem to get them out coherently.
I can’t objectively talk about women/people whom I admire. Perhaps in a way to navigate the world, one adopts many mothers, sages, vessels of wisdom and strength, love and courage.
In Audre Lorde I find such a person. An authentic voice when much of the world was against her a black lesbian, including her mother.
I believe that every person no matter what station or orientation in life should be accorded full dignity and respect to live in sympatico to their sexual orientation and I cannot install myself as the moral arbiter of other peoples lives. With all that is my life ,this is one oppressive discrimination that I do not have to battle.
I am a heterosexual multii-ethnic Black woman, single mother, survivor, sculptor, agnostic atheist, veteran of monumental mistakes , still finding her voice.
Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful, is in my mind now.
My mother, also, who had monumental odds stacked against her taught me to try and look for the good in all people and to try to look at things from all angles. Listening to her has made me self – forgetful at times. The other lessons are gratitude and empathy.
I am no better or worse in the larger scheme of things than anyone else and neither is any -one my master or inferior.
Reading Jiddu Krishanmurti has taught me to have a stand point is not to see 360 degrees. Bessie Head taught me the importance of being ordinary.
The world is at once so heartachingly ineffablly beautiful that no matter how painful and oppressive, we have to find meaning to our lives in spite of all the obstacles . Turn up for ourselves. Mine our treasures :our beauty, voices, truth and our authentic understanding of ourselves.
I know that anger and self-loathing that Ms Lordes has written about . I knew from a a very young age what it felt like to be despised and to be a non-entity. The long journey to discovery of self is met with many speed bumps and blind spots ,but it is the very best road trip one can take.
There comes a point in many a woman’s life, where the seed of bitterness is planted, and we can decide to be bitter or bear sweet fruit.
Ms Lorde bore sweet fruit.
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Are female misogynist oppressors too? Why are we pretending as if women don’t sl*t shame or believe in gender roles?
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Well as far as the article and comments goes, no one said that women don’t slut shame or believe in gender roles. In fact it is besides the point, because just like other forms of power, systems of oppression often rely on and work best when many of the oppressed believe in that said system. It doesn’t make it any more or any less oppressive and what Audre Lorde sought to do was understand how these systems of oppression work and propagate in society. Understanding how and where power comes from is one of the first steps towards understanding what is necessary towards changing how the system works and its relationship to different groups of people.
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Audre Lorde’s understanding/definition of racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance, manifest and implied.
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Great quote by Audre Lorde, “Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.”
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