Lorde compares how, "We were born poor in a time never touching each other's hunger" but that now, children are raised to respect themselves and each other. She argues that while accepting and acknowledging the best parts of oneself are important, it is equally important to recognize the dark parts as well.[4]. My silences had not protected me. In ‘Scratching the Surface’, Lorde’s lens zooms in on West African lesbian marriage before focusing on the heterosexual black women who claim that ‘to endorse lesbianism [is] to endorse the death of our race’. ‘A Litany for Survival’s’ closing words – ‘it is better to speak/ remembering/ we were never meant to survive’ – could be used to summarise the entirety of Lorde’s writing. In her essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Black feminist and poet, Audre Lorde states, “Your silence will not protect you.” My silence on important issues will not protect me, and it won’t protect others who need advocates and allies. We must acknowledge the past while simultaneously recognising the continuity of the present. In the 1980s, four of Lorde’s books were published by Sheba Feminist Press, a London-based lesbian collective that included Scots Makar, Jackie Kay. Sofi Oksanen: Your Silence Will Not Protect You. As a Black, lesbian, feminist, Lorde dealt with inequalities between how white and Black lesbians were treated in public spaces. Paper £12.99", "Feminist Literature: A New Frontier | VQR Online", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Your_Silence_Will_Not_Protect_You&oldid=1002087536, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving", "Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface", "Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response", "A Conversation between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich", "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House", "Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference", "The Uses of Anger: Responding to Racism", "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger", This page was last edited on 22 January 2021, at 20:05. [4], In "Equinox" Lorde describes events in history which coincide with events in her life. Her poetry is a powerful example of that shift in action. The instant you base the value of your words on the absence of social disapproval, you become a perpetually frustrated player in a zero-sum game. In "A Conversation between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich" Lorde states, "That this was the most we could do, while we constructed some saner future. She criticizes the lack of representation for "poor women, Black women, Third World Women, and lesbians", having been asked to speak at 'The Personal and the Political' panel. Silence is the deadliest weapon” –Marlon Riggs, from Tongues Untied “My silences had not protected me. [4], "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" discussed how each person has both used and unused types of power. These trials are liminal spaces between one place and the next; the poem is ‘for those of us who live at the shoreline/ standing upon the constant edges of decision’ and ‘who love in doorways coming and going/ in the hours between dawns’. In the Untitled (Body) series, Kruger Plays with font size to tell multiple stories at once. This references her belief in speaking for oneself and taking language into action. Your Silence Will Not Protect You was published posthumously in order to bring together Lorde's essential poetry, speeches, and essays, into one volume for the first time. This fact is quoted on the jacket of Your Silence Will Not Protect You, a new edition of Lorde’s writing published by the young feminist publisher Silver Press, and has been repeated often in the rush of media that has accompanied the book’s publication. While so much feminist thought is preoccupied with the solutions of the future, Lorde’s writing is arguably at its most radical when it looks to the past to solve our problems. Its book covers popping up everywhere. All points of view are points of contention. So revolutionary acts, too, need to always be reacting to new knowledge, new interpretations. Your Silence Will Not Protect You… In fact, it may kill you. So, too, was Lorde herself. I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. Sisterhood cannot exist so long as white … The poem is made of a series of one-sentence stanzas that feel almost religious in the way the plainly adorned lines of prose describe the troubles the oppressed must survive. Audre Lorde. Lorde’s prose, meanwhile, is easy to understand without feeling easy – there’s a sense that despite the lack of smoke and mirrors, we still need to work to understand exactly what she is saying. She was killed because she was a Black woman, and her cause belongs to us all’. Your silence will not protect you,” warns Audre Lorde in her paper The Transformation of Silence Into Language And Action. Your silence will not protect you,” warns Audre Lorde in her paper The Transformation of Silence Into Language And Action. Later in the poem, fear is described as both forced upon us and inevitable: ‘when our stomachs are full we are afraid/ of indigestion/ when our stomachs are empty we are afraid/ we may never eat again’. So, too, was Lorde herself. [4], In "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", Lorde discussed various themes that recur throughout the book, including silence as a form of violence, shifting language into action, and the splintering of the feminist movement. This illusion may be spawned by respectability politics that says if we just pull our pants up, avert our gaze in the presence of police, speak nicely and lovingly, even in the face of violence, that we will be safe. Historical fact is constantly shifting or, more specifically, the knowledge we have of the past evolves with time. She states, "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. 591 likes. “Though weak and unwell, she still had plenty of energy. 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