I am safe nowhere, the Black women in my family of origin and family of choice are safe nowhere. It’s a fact we’ve known but one that feels all the more threatening in the wake of continuing violent injustice for Black women.
In my own myth, New York has been the cornerstone of what shaped me, finally allowing myself to be in my queerness. While the New York I inhabited and the one of Audre Lorde’s life looked radically different, Lorde’s relationships and the women she loves and lusts for each leave her fuller than before.
I’m still angry. Breonna Taylor’s murderers still walk free. Let’s be real, they’re probably running around without masks. Audre Lorde’s sense of restlessness and barely concealed fury are evident. But so, too, is her unwavering belief in our magic.
We are in the middle of a revolution. My Black woman’s anger is here to signal a necessary sea change. Understand that all of our freedoms are bound up in one another.
“I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”
This is dedicated to those who are just trying to make it through every day. It’s been gratifying on an almost cellular level to find that the queen mother Audre Lorde can so frequently speak to the times and places in which we find ourselves. Her final book of poetry, “The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance,” is no exception.
One of the biggest lessons of Audre Lorde’s work is the strength of coalitional politics. I need a movement that can hold my anger. I need a movement that can hold my contradictions. I shouldn’t have to qualify my rage when speaking out about injustice.
I’m pairing Audre Lorde’s 1984 conversation with James Baldwin and arguably her best-known speech, “The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” in hopes of exploring how our power and freedom lie in embracing our differences as the source of our strength.
Introducing our new series: Year of Our (Audre) Lorde, a monthly analysis of works by queen mother Audre Lorde as they apply to our current political moment. First, how harnessing our erotic power can help us THRIVE!
Novels, memoirs, essay and short story collections that are really good and also have sex in them that involve two or more women! Wow!
“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.” – Audre Lorde
If Alice Walker once said “hard times require furious dancing,” then hard times call for reading poetry, particularly black poets. Follow zaynab’s journey in reconnecting with black poetry as a means of daily survival and understand why reading the work of black poets can enhance our collective understandings of what it means to cultivate and sustain resistance.
“If you are devastated by the state of this country and you aren’t sure what to do about it, you will watch this film and feel differently. I mean that.”
By the time straight women of the second wave had caught up to the times, queer women had already f*cked up their movement — and built one all their own.
For National Poetry Month, an ode to the queer poets who talk about their love, fight for justice, and helped me save myself.
These women changed feminism forever with their scholarship. Let’s vow to never forget their names.
“Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression.”
These costumes will make you look real smart and cool, even though you may have to keep describing who you are all night, but that’s OK.
The Speakeasy is starting a book club to read QTPOC-relevant books, and you’re all invited to join.
This epic megapost is your glorious opportunity to meet more than 100 amazing black LGBT women who’ve made their mark over the last 150 years.
