The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde

In 1979, for example, Audre Lorde wrote a letter to Mary Daly, and when Daly did not respond, Lorde made her entreaty an open letter. She recognized that there would never be a perfect time to speak up because “while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.” She recognized the importance of speaking up because silence would not protect her or anyone. I wonder how Lorde would respond to such a microaggression because in her prescient writings she demonstrated, time and again, a remarkable and necessary ability to stand up for herself, her intellectual prowess and that of all Black women, with power and grace. Whenever this happens to me or I witness it happening to another Black woman, I turn to Audre Lorde. She is referred to as sassy on Twitter, maybe, or as a lover of bacon, random tidbits bearing no relation to the reasons she is in that professional setting.

The Black woman is spoken of in terms of anecdote rather than accomplishment. Rarely do they do the necessary research to offer any sense of whom they are introducing. The introducer might laugh awkwardly, rushing through whatever impoverished remarks they have prepared. Her accomplishments tend to be diminished. There is this thing that happens, all too often, when a Black woman is being introduced in a professional setting. OL2191785W Page_number_confidence 90.73 Pages 520 Partner Innodata Pdf_module_version 0.0.18 Ppi 360 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20220602161115 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 591 Scandate 20220531061924 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 9780393040906 Sent_to_scribe Tts_version 5.Audre Lorde. Urn:lcp:collectedpoemsof0000lord:epub:bd8c4462-386e-4f24-b424-c29bef614481 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier collectedpoemsof0000lord Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s216jjpgb25 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0393040909 Lccn 97010878 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9703 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-1200460 Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 17:23:27 Autocrop_version 0.0.13_books-20220331-0.2 Bookplateleaf 0004 Boxid IA40529505 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde