In her essay, Lordes seems to say that yes, there are differences between us such as age, race, sex etc. Ours. Water protectors and land stewards are calling for an end to extractive energy practices in favor of investments in sustainable economies and ecological justice. I went deeper into her life as a mother, lover of women, intellectual, and activist. Now is the time to actualize the refrain “We Keep Us Safe” beyond chants and into the way we treat each other. For example, Black cisgender men who are attracted to Black transgender women are directly and indirectly told that they are failures. Audre Lorde: The Theory of Difference - YouTube. You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7. Reflecting on this powerful revelation of the path to kinship across difference, Lorde adds: We are the hyphenated people of the Diaspora whose self-defined identities are no longer shameful secrets in the countries of our origin, but rather declarations of strength and solidarity. The terrors surrounding queer, transgender, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and intersex people promote passive tolerance and active violence throughout Black intimate relationships, families, institutions, and communities. Despite this, many of us do not feel safe. And this discussion would immediately be perceived as an attack upon their very essence. Subscribe to this free midweek pick-me-up for heart, mind, and spirit below — it is separate from the standard Sunday digest of new pieces: “Our respect for other people, for other nations and for other cultures, can only grow from a humble respect for the cosmic order,” the great Czech dissident turned president Václav Havel observed in reflecting on the interconnectedness of our fates in a globalized yet divided world. Audre Lorde quickly became the best known out-of-the-closet Black radical lesbian feminist. Every once in a while, we stumble into situations that jolt us into a sudden and palpable awareness of that inescapable interconnectedness, even across the greatest gulfs of difference. I read work with her DNA in it, including Janet Mock’s memoir, Surpassing Certainty. Her work was in many ways a critique of Second Wave feminism (typically seen as occurring … “It is not our differences that divide us. Black cisgender women enable this when we passively or actively justify their actions, effectively distancing ourselves from Black transgender women. I invite you to take a moment to be still and think about a world where no Black person lives in fear, a world where we do not operate from a place of terror — imagine what it looks like. I sat with each line of Litany for Survival. She fought especially hard to create space for Black and queer women in that movement, to "bridge some of those differences … This ideology is a staple of American primary education. Discover popular and famous difference quotes by Audre Lorde. Audrey Geraldine Lorde, better known as simply Audre Lorde, was an American civil rights activist, author and feminist of Caribbean descent, who is best known for waging her activism through her poems. While we fortify ourselves with visions of the future, we must arm ourselves with accurate perceptions of the barriers between us and that future. In this moment, made possible by generations of freedom fighters, we have an unprecedented opportunity. And where do our paths diverge? Difference is one, survival is another. You can also become a spontaneous supporter with a one-time donation in any amount: Partial to Bitcoin? Privacy policy. Collection of sourced quotations by Audre Lorde on difference. I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of … Black people across gender and sexual identities are demanding an end to the patriarchal violence reproduced across institutions, our own communities, and social movements. Through her activism and work—speeches, essays, poems, journals—she was a tireless revolutionary in the fight for women's rights. In a sentiment consonant with Holocaust survivor Primo Levi’s admonition that a society “is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful,” Lorde adds: Feminism must be on the cutting edge of real social change if it is to survive as a movement in any particular country. As she reconfigures her existing frame of reference for kinship and difference to factor in the fact of their existence, she writes in her diary: Who are they, the German women of the Diaspora? It feels dangerous now to be Black in Berlin sad suicides that never got reported Neukölln Kreuzberg the neon Zoo a new siege along Unter den Linden with Paris accents New York hustle many tattered visions intersecting. Go here. Here's an example. Most important, what can we learn from our connected differences that will be useful to us both, Afro-German and Afro-American? In their efforts to possess or repossess the standard, they often enact violence against the same women they (privately) desire. Throughout her 20-plus years of published Black feminist work, Lorde consistently calls for unity across difference, saying that “we do not have to become each other in order to work together.” As we bang against the state in defense of Black lives, we have to commit to loving each other in the light of our differences. Need to cancel a recurring donation? According to Lorde, this dynamic “reflects noncommunication in the heterosexual Black community that is far more truly threatening than the existence of Black Lesbians.” Homophobia is one way that threat manifests, which Lorde defines as “a terror surrounding feelings of love for members of the same sex and thereby a hatred of those feelings in others.”. Lorde, who died in 1992 at the age of 58, agitates me into making informed assessments while living in between the contradictions of the world as it is and the world as it should be. Where do our paths intersect as women of Color — beyond the details of our particular oppressions, although certainly not outside the reference of those details? instead of your children. This is why so many white American's struggle with the idea of racism. A condensed narrative on Audre Lorde's incredible life of activism. We cannot be terrified by our differences. Which of These Audre Lorde Quotes Spark a Light in You? Terror is the big story we are told about the other, regardless of whether you experience it or not. This is a call to principled kinship and an opportunity to “broaden and redefine what we mean by family.” It is a call to unapologetically care for and defend each other. The difference between poetry and rhetoric. The difference between poetry and rhetoric. Ideologically they know, and earnestly believe, that racism is “bad”. She became an influential actor and mentor in the Afro-German movement. I saw words on everything from T-shirts to memes and poster boards. People are organizing for a world where our social, political, and economic lives are based in dignity — not exploitation and violence. Complement this particular portion with Albert Einstein on the interdependence of our fates and Hannah Arendt on the immigrant plight for identity, then revisit Lorde on the courage to break silence and the indivisibility of identity. Afro-German. yourself. They are a threat to the entire race’s ability to prosper. She embraced differences within individuals and within communities, believing that we … A Medium newsletter by, for, and about Black women Take a look. — Brain Pickings has a free Sunday digest of the week's most interesting and inspiring articles across art, science, philosophy, creativity, children's books, and other strands of our search for truth, beauty, and meaning. A form of resistance against Black Germans being defined by others, the term Afro-German serves as the community defining themselves (Oguntoye, xxii).Even in the early German women’s movement, racism was a form of oppression that was rarely discussed … “It is not our differences that divide us. Whatever the core problems are for the people of that country must also be the core problems addressed by women, for we do not exist in a vacuum. The women say they’ve never heard that term used before. This terror extends to intracommunal and systemic transphobia — a terror surrounding feelings of attraction, love, and relating to transgender people and thereby a hatred of the existence of trans people. A publication from Medium for Black women. I Went on a Reading Diet. Here’s What I Learned. A solid foundation, Lorde comes to recognize in the unfolding months, requires not a false sense of similarity but a true sense of kinship across difference. https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/02/audre-lorde-burst-of-light-kinship-difference/ She was the first black student at Hunter High School, a public school for gifted girls, but her 1951 love poem Spring was rejected as unsuitable by the school’s literary journal. “In a world of possibility for us all, our personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action.” A self-described Black lesbian mother warrior poet, Audre Lorde lived a life of possibility. They are bearing the fruit of centuries of Black abolitionist, feminist, queer, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist movement-building. We are anchored in our own place and time, looking out and beyond to the future we are creating, and we are part of communities that interact. Instead of deploying fear, she invokes terror. Lorde’s use of terror is significant. Lorde's call to accept difference is not one of mere ideology. Like? Audre Lorde documented her theory of difference in 1984 in her book of speeches and essays, ‘Sister Outsider’. Heterosexism dictates what people and behaviors are normal and which ones are deviant — no matter who you are attracted to. And the erotic. —. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. but she believes that “it is not those differences between us that are separating us. 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