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On Audre Lorde's Legacy and the "Self" of Self-Care, Part 1 of 3

[Please do not be that ass who reblogs this image and deletes the text below.]

Update: Part Two here.

We’re still learning to read Audre Lorde, who should have been 79 today. We’re still learning to become the collectivity, the “we,” that would make reading Audre Lorde possible. The Audre Lorde that I think is especially worth reading is not the Audre Lorde that reads like a bumper sticker. Nor is it the Audre Lorde that settles the score, once and for all, the Audre Lorde who puts the full stop on the conversations we’ve needed to have before we’ve had them. The Audre Lorde I’m interested in is perhaps too queer to set things straight for us politically. Which also means that it’s also not the Audre Lorde who exists as an alibi. The Audre Lorde that’s most interesting to me is the Audre Lorde who is a complex, often contradictory historical figure, a figure whose brilliance resides not in her individual insight but in her capacity to creatively animate and inhabit the very contradictions in which she lived. It is that kind of brilliance that makes her A. Lorde and not, well, a Lord; that is, not a god-like figure whose authority is to be deferred to once and for all, but someone whose life and work provide an rich world of problems, questions, and ideas worth thinking with, borrowing from, confronting, and, of course, disagreeing with. I’m interested in claiming Audre Lorde as a human. Which is to say that in many ways, she was not, ultimately, that much unlike you or me. Even in her radical difference. Even because of it.

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lowendtheory

On Audre Lorde's Legacy and the "Self" of Self-Care, Part 2 of 3

[Image: from the Black Community Survival Conference, DeFremery (locally known as Lil’ Bobby Hutton) Park, Oakland, CA, March 29, 1972. I first encountered this image via Alondra Nelson’s brilliant book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination.]

“If I were president, I would solve this so-called welfare crisis in a minute and go a long way toward liberating every woman. I’d just issue a proclamation that ‘women’s’ work is real work.” - Johnnie Tillmon, “Welfare Is a Women’s Issue.”

"The modern world hates to see black folks resting.“ - Lewis Gordon, ”African American Philosophy, Race, and the Geography of Reason.“

Part One here.

This post is an experiment. It attempts to find a new route to the question of what it means to politicize Audre Lorde’s legacy. Its search is partly in response to what I described in part 1 as the tendency in some cases to deify Lorde by extracting her from the political context in which she lived, or by reducing her to a set of pithy (if brilliant) quotations, or by invoking her as an unqualified paragon of black women’s resilience. In attempting to route the conversation differently, my strategy is to try and glimpse Lorde through an archive that is not of her published writings but of a set of struggles and contexts that affirm dimensions of her humanity and her work that are too rarely emphasized—her struggles with health and wellness, her status as worker, her vulnerability to the very discourses that demand that she be seen as powerful. Doing this means following a route that may, to some, seem rather circuitous. I can only hope that by the end, those divergences will make some sense.

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Do Not Tell the Children

I cannot hold you in my hand for long

nor comfort you with vagrant lullabies.

Your nature is to stray into the dark realms

of the hidden trees.

Comfort comes from knowing the safe places

deep and separate, past the beaches

and the furious sea.

You balance mountains on your forehead

and pine trees on your finger tips.

Alone, you fight the night screeches

of the sleepless birds and build your defences

like the jackal in the silhouette

of the enormous hill.

I have nothing to offer you

but an eternity of lines around my throat.

Circles of time.

There is no comfort in growing old. The old are too old.

So I have frozen the moment.

The precious moment is frozen forever.

Do not tell the children ghost stories.

Tell them the truth about ghosts,

for they were born with them embedded

in their folds.

Silgardo, Melanie. “Do Not Tell the Children”. Nine Indian Women Poets – An Anthology. Ed. Eunice de Souza. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 33. VI. India

#melanieselgardo #goan #poetry #women

For Rita’s Daughter, Just Born

13 Luminous new leaf

May the sun rise gently

on your unfurling

in the courtyard

always linger

the smell of earth after rain

the stone of these steps

stay cool and cold

gods in the niches

old brass on the wall

never the shrill cry of kites.

De Souza, Eunice. “For Rita’s Daughter, Just Born”. The Oxford Indian Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets. Ed. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 121.

#eunicedesouza #poetry #goan

Sweet Seventeen

Well, you can’t say they didn’t try.

Mamas never mentioned menses.

A nun screamed: You vulgar girls don’t say brassières say bracelets.

She pinned paper sleeves onto her sleeveless dresses.

The preacher thundered:

Never go with a man alone

Never alone

and even if you’re engaged only passionless kisses.

At sixteen,

Phoebe asked me:

Can it happen when you’re in a dance hall I mean,

you know what,

getting preggers and all that,

when you’re dancing?

I, sixteen, assured her you could

De Souza, Eunice. “Sweet Seventeen”. The Oxford Indian Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets. Ed. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1992. 116.

#eunicedesouza #goan #poetry

Catholic Mother

Francis X D’Souza father of the year.

Here he is top left the one smiling.

By the grace of God he says we’ve had seven children (in seven years).

We’re One Big Happy Family

God Always Provides India will Suffer for her Wicked Ways (these Hindu buggers got no ethics).

Pillar of the Church says the parish priest

Lovely Catholic Family says Mother Superior

The pillar’s wife says nothing.

#euniced'souza #eunicedesouza #goan #poetry

graceless-goddess-deactivated20

Via Instagram: queens.of.color

inappropriateculture

Go West – Black: Random Coachella attendee, 2014. Red: Bison skull pile, South Dakota, 1870’s.

susegadnz

Stunning work.

theteej

Hi white friends!

Things have been tense lately, neh? Sometimes shit gets rough and awkward, ESPECIALLY when talking through and working through issue of race and identity. I just want to make available a potential cheat-sheet of links to consult especially when I post things that may make you want to knee-jerk say “YOU’RE WRONG T.J.” or “BUT I’M NOT BAD”.

I do, as much as I can, understand where you’re coming from. You don’t want to be a bad person. Nobody wants to be a bad person! Especially about something like race/racism/generalized fuckery.

BUT…. it’s incredibly important to recognize that white people DO benefit from structural racism in this country (No, not everyone benefits equally! No, this doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard! No, this is not erased by the fact that you may have come from a white ethnic group that was not seen as white in the nineteenth century. Yes, this does mean racial privilege, which DOES irrefutably exist, is mediated by other intersectional identities like class/gender/orientation/favourite member of 1Direction). I know it’s hard to see yourself as benefiting immediately, historically from oppression, especially when you try not to throw rocks at brown people, etc. But you do. You benefit from a daily structural system that you generally are invested in NOT SEEING. So before you get salty at me and post your incredibly, incredibly, incredibly unoriginal #notallwhitepeople response (or your “how will i learn if you don’t explain it to me?” or your “people would be more on your side if you were nicer and not so hostile” post–believe me, you are NOT original), here are some helpful links that I ask, as your friend, to read from beginning to end, before you hit that salty reply button. SERIOUSLY.

I AM DOING FREE LABOUR FOR YOU RIGHT NOW AND POSTING LINKS FOR YOU. READ THEM. THANK YOU:

Let’s just start here: http://www.cirtl.net/files/PartI_CreatingAwareness_WhitePrivilegeUnpackingtheInvisibleKnapsack.pdf

NEXT: SECTION ONE: On derailing by needing to be a special individual and not thinking about how whiteness benefits you erryday:

1) http://www.flowerhorne.com/blog/2013/12/20/not-all-white-people-and-derailing-conversations

2) http://thoughtcatalog.com/kovie-biakolo/2014/10/9-insufferable-people-who-derail-every-race-conversation/

3) http://thoughtcatalog.com/kovie-biakolo/2014/09/9-predictable-comments-all-pocs-are-super-tired-of-hearing/

SECTION TWO: On intersections of race and other things, ESPECIALLY THE FIRST ONE:

4) http://thefeministbreeder.com/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person/

5) http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/06/as-white-lgbt-person-you-still-have.html

6) http://www.glaad.org/blog/gay-will-never-be-new-black-what-james-baldwin-taught-me-about-my-white-privilege

7) http://groupthink.kinja.com/this-is-what-i-mean-when-i-say-white-feminism-1498799007

SECTION THREE: This is not my goddamn job. YOU NEED TO DO THE WORK.

8) http://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/black_people_are_not_here_to_teach_you_what_so_many_white_americans_just_cant_grasp_partner/

9) http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/15823127398/why-asking-poc-to-explain-is-a-problem

10)http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2012/04/the-revolution-will-not-be-polite-the-issue-of-nice-versus-good/

11) http://groupthink.kinja.com/on-tone-policing-why-its-bullshit-and-why-you-need-to-1148310719

This list is NOT EXHAUSTIVE. But it is an excellent place to start. You may want to keep this nearby, just in case you feel a knee-jerk coming on. I welcome you to respond freely and openly on social media with me, but I will not brook being asked to do the labour of holding your hand, prioritizing your feelings over mine, or continuing to buttress the inequity that prioritizes your life over mine. I won’t. That’s not meanness. That’s autonomy (Kujichagulia, if you’re into your Kwanzaa principles).

I want to be open and respectful with you, but these are my ground rules. And I’m stickin to ‘em.

Kuchijagulia,

Teej

#sunset #grantville

#grantville #sunset

everythingisnothingbyitself

In response to Phil Twyford’s comments.

tobitastic

I’m sure we’ve all heard it before. The assertion that being trans is wrong, ridiculous, or “not real” because it would be similarly wrong for someone to try to change their race. As a Latina, Yaqui, and...

tobitastic

Reblogging because of an article going around making this false analogy.

b-binaohan-deactivated20140530

(rebloggable by request)

Anon asked: How is being transgender different from being transethnic? I’m sorry, this may seem like a trolling question, but I genuinely want to know.

My reply:

I’m sad that this is confusing :(

Mostly ‘cause it means...

The Pencilsword: On a plate

Quite possibly the most beautiful illustrations I have ever seen about privilege and entitlement by Toby Morris in the Wireless. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

#privilege #poverty #entitlement

armedpublishing

Not Your Post-Racial Future: Why Interracial Families Need to Talk About Race

By Sophie Steains

I have this memory that’s been troubling me for a while.

I was 18 and out in Kings Cross for the night. As I was waiting to order at the bar, a man came up and offered to buy me a drink. He was in his early 30s or so, white, built. He told me it was his birthday and that he wanted to celebrate. I knew he was coming on to me, but I was young and naïve, so I let him do it. Anyway, the lady at the bar made up this special blue birthday cocktail for him. She set it on fire, everyone around us cheered. I couldn’t help but join in on the celebration too. But then, as the man motioned to pay, I noticed a photograph tucked into the front pocket of his wallet. It was a young, beautiful Asian woman holding a Eurasian baby. My blood ran cold.

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This is definitely helping with my lecture prep. #equity #equality #cultural competence

#cultural #equality #equity

http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-inequality-tower

Fantastic way of understanding inequality

#inequality #new zealand

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