Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the challenges faced by black writers who venture beyond established narratives and expectations.
Audre Lorde emphasizes the restrictive nature of predefined identities within black literary circles, illustrating how writers who defy societal expectations are marginalized. This marginalization mirrors the silence caused by systemic racism, suggesting that true artistic expression can often meet resistance not just from external forces, but also from within one's own community.
In practice
During a panel on literary diversity, one might reference this quote to discuss the importance of breaking stereotypes in black literature.
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.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
All that we did, all that we said or sang must come from contact with the soil.
You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican.
Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.
Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbor.
My sole recreations consist in dancing English hornpipes and cutting capers. Italy is a land of sleep; I am always drowsy here.
But always and sometimes questioning the old modes_x000D_ _x000D_ And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,_x000D_ _x000D_ Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual_x000D_ _x000D_ Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,_x000D_ _x000D_ Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.
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