This post is part of the Breathing is Brilliant reprise of the Black Feminist Breathing Chorus for Black History Month (also known as Audre Lorde’s Birthday Month) 2019.
“I am who I am, doing what I came to do,” was a radical statement for Audre Lorde, a Black lesbian feminist poet, educator and activist who faced criticism for her sexuality as she co-founded the field of Black studies, who felt tokenized and exploited by white feminists when she spoke out about police brutality. And in what may have been the most difficult navigation of identity for Lorde, she felt judged and rejected by other Black women when her choices differed from their choices or expectations of her.
In my favorite of Audre Lorde’s many publication bios, for a piece she wrote in the journal Amazon Quarterly Lorde says that she is not only a Black lesbian feminist, but also near-sighted, fat, high maintenance and more. Audre Lorde told Pacifica radio that she felt that it was important to claim every aspect of her being, not only so that no one else could use it against her, but also because she felt accountable for showing other people in her communities how to love all parts of themselves. She mused on how much it would have meant for her, as someone who knew Langston Hughes and was mentored by him in the Harlem Writer’s Guild, to know that he was gay. It may not have been possible for him to state publicly (by the way, Happy Birthday Langston Hughes), but it was a major commitment for Lorde.
When I think about the complexity of Audre Lorde’s institutional positions (first Black faculty member in John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s English Department, tokenized and invalidated poetry editor for the feminist journal Chrysalis, awkward almost elder to the Black feminist gathered at the Combahee River Collective’s Black Feminist Retreats, Black Arts poet who chose to leave Broadside Press due to homophobia, first Black woman to read at the National Library and who then had to ask a white audience not to laugh during her poems about violence against Black people, esteemed faculty member at Hunter where a poetry center was named after her who was not permitted to sustainably revise her teaching schedule when she had cancer, New York State Poet Laureate who could not physically or economically continue to live in New York) I think about what it takes for any of us to love all parts of ourselves while we navigate and transform existing institutions and/or seek to invent and sustain alternative ones. This is what we support each other to work through all the time at Brilliance Remastered. And while the strategies are many, and everyone’s specific circumstances are impacted by interlocking forms of oppression, one thing that we all are charged with is learning to breathe in multiple constricting circumstances. No one else can do the work of being who we are, exactly where and when we are, but the extent to which we find ways to powerfully BE allows us to support and be supported by multitudes across time and space.
What can you do today, this week, this month, that offers you breathing room?
Our offering towards your breathing is this guided chant meditation inspired by Audre Lorde from the Black Feminist Breathing Chorus 5 years ago. Take a deep breath and enjoy. And take the loving audacity of the Lorde with you wherever you are.
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And here are links if you want to support the Black Feminist Bookmobile Project and the ongoing work of the Mobile Homecoming Trust Living Library and Archive.
Loving you with every breath (because breathing is brilliant,)
Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs