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.
And then he danced,-all foreigners excel the serious Angels in the eloquence of pantomime;-he danced, I say, right well, with emphasis, and a'so with good sense-a thing in footing indispensable: he danced without theatrical pretence, not like a ballet-master in the van of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.
Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.
It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
You have to take a lot of bad pictures. Dont' be afraid to take bad pictures... You have to take a lot of bad pictures in order to know when you've got a good one.
We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder.
A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.
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