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Still Surviving
Nov. 10th, 2016 08:45 amOkay, but can we just...
Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a simple switch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor the ability to smile or feel good. I am speaking of a basic and radical alteration in those assumptions underlining our lives.
I have seen situations where white women hear a racist remark, resent what has been said, become filled with fury, and remain silent because they are afraid. That unexpressed anger lies within them like an undetonated device, usually to be hurled at the first woman of Color who talks about racism.
But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies.
Audre Lorde delivered this speech (link) in 1981. Nineteen-eighty-fucking-one.
I've been reading it over and over, over and over and over, and trying to internalize what Lorde is saying. I'm overcome with fear and shame, and I want to transform it into something useful, but I have no idea how; I could barely look my colleagues and interns in the eye yesterday. I feel so lost, but if nothing else it gives me hope that other people have been through this and still managed to maintain their dignity.
Staring at the trash fire has been real, but for the sake of my sanity I'm going to go back to writing about video games... or not.
Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a simple switch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor the ability to smile or feel good. I am speaking of a basic and radical alteration in those assumptions underlining our lives.
I have seen situations where white women hear a racist remark, resent what has been said, become filled with fury, and remain silent because they are afraid. That unexpressed anger lies within them like an undetonated device, usually to be hurled at the first woman of Color who talks about racism.
But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies.
Audre Lorde delivered this speech (link) in 1981. Nineteen-eighty-fucking-one.
I've been reading it over and over, over and over and over, and trying to internalize what Lorde is saying. I'm overcome with fear and shame, and I want to transform it into something useful, but I have no idea how; I could barely look my colleagues and interns in the eye yesterday. I feel so lost, but if nothing else it gives me hope that other people have been through this and still managed to maintain their dignity.
Staring at the trash fire has been real, but for the sake of my sanity I'm going to go back to writing about video games... or not.
