Using Our Power To Make A Difference

USING OUR POWER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

AUDRE LORDE VISITS ANN ARBOR

by Catherine Fisher

Black, lesbian, feminist, mother, poet, cancer survivor and warrior, Audre Lorde says she writes poetry and prose to break silences which would otherwise drain her strength. Speaking articulately and powerfully about her own life, Lorde has provided many of us an opportunity to identify parts of ourselves for which we did not know words, or which had been silenced by sexism, racism or other forms of oppression. Lorde stresses the need to affirm differences - in race, class, sex, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity-rather than ignoring or assimilating them. She is the author of books including: "The Black Unicorn," "The Cancer Journals," and her most recently published work, "A Burst of Light." Lorde is a professor ofEnglish at Hunter College in New York City. She is also a founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and of the Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa, a coalition which supports women in their resistance of apartheid in South Africa. Lorde' s talk was the local beginning of Sexual Assualt Prevention month, which was observed state-wide in April.The primary sponsor of Audre Lorde' s talk was the U-M Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.

On March 30, Audre Lorde addressed a crowd of 500 people in U-M ' s Hale Auditorium. In her speech "Women, Power and Difference," Lorde encouraged the audience to keep in mind that we are part of an international community. Lorde stated that being answerable to that community is "not altruistic thinking. It's survival." Lorde asked us to question ourselves about how we identify our own personal power and differences. "Power is not static," said Lorde. "If you do not use who you are in the service of what you say that you believe, someone else is using you. And it is always to your detriment, and my detriment and the detriment of our children." Difference is creative, according to Lorde, and so we must learn to use it. Lorde remarked that we waste energy "lusting to become each other," and said "I do not have to be you in order for us to work together."

Throughout her speech Lorde stressed the responsibility of each individual to be answerable to others in how we use our power. "I would like each of you here for one moment to feel - not think - feel what it means to be a citizen of the most powerful country in the world," said Lorde. "And then I want you to feel what it means to be a citizen of a country that stands on the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth." There was some laughter to which Lorde responded, "I hear your nervous laughter - as terror." Lorde suggested that it was appropriate to feel afraid, but not to be immobilized by terror.

Lorde used several examples of international situations where oppression needs to meet our resistance, underscoring her message with her poetry. For example, German feminists are beginning to address attempts to ignore the victims of the holocaust Lorde said. She described a monument in West Berlin, dedicated to the Generals of the German resistance, which includes an urn containing earth from German concentration camps. What is missing from this urn, said Lorde in her poem is "the unremarkable ash of fussy, thin-boned infants, adolescent Jewish girls."

Lorde pinpointed several situations in which U.S. citizens should examine our responsibility to the international community. The Virgin Islands are a territory of the United States, while the rest of the Caribbean Basin nations are independent. Describing this as a colonial relationship she said each one of us should ask ourselves what we know of the Virgin Islands and the independent nations in the Caribbean referred to as the Caribbean Basin. Lorde asserted, "A basin is someplace where you wash your hands when you are dirty. The Caribbean is nobody's basin."

Continuing on this theme, Lorde urged the audience to think about South Africa while fighting racism here in the U.S. She pointed out that "apartheid U.S.A. and apartheid South Africa" are not separate from each other. Lorde said the U.S. fuels and props up the system of apartheid. The people of Africa look to the people of the U.S. to see how we are using our power said Lorde. She warned that our children will hold us accountable. She said they will ask what you were doing before South Africa was free. "Because, you see," she stated "South Africa will be free!" Lorde was interrupted by applause.

Concluding her talk. Lorde received two standing ovations from an energized audience. She told the people: "I feel the tremendous amount of power in this room. You are beautiful, you are real. I urge you all to know that the power that you feel right now doesn't reside in me. It is yours. Each one of you owns it. It is yours to take out of this room and to use in some way."