Silence

My favorite professor introduced me to Audre Lorde, the Black, Lesbian, Feminist Writer and Poet, when I was in college. I have already posted my favorite poem of all time here, "A Litany for Survival."

I was reminded of her book, Sister Outsider, after reading an article in Ms. Magazine this month about some new material of hers that has just been published. That is definitely on my want-list for books! If you get a chance, you should check that out too.

All the essays in Sister Outsider are fantastic. Two of my other favorites are "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" and "Poetry is Not a Luxury." If you get a chance, they may be available online.

Here are some excerpts from "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", which she wrote before her death.


"In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge hat while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into perspective gave me great strength. I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you." (41)

"For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson - that we were never meant to to survive. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which is also the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid." (42)

"And it is never without fear - of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now that if I were to have been born mute, or had maintained an oath of silence my whole life long for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die. It is very good for establishing perspective." (43)

"We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken." (44)

"The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" by Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches by Audre Lorde