May 14, 2013
"I am a lesbian woman of Color whose children eat regularly because I work in a university. If their full bellies make me fail to recognize my commonality with a woman of Color whose children do not eat because she cannot find work, or who has no children because her insides are rotted from home abortions and sterilization; if I fail to recognize the lesbian who chooses not to have children, the woman who remains closeted because her homophobic community is her only life support, the woman who chooses silence instead of another death, the woman who is terrified lest my anger trigger the explosion of hers; if I fail to recognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contributing not only to each of their oppressions but also to my own, and the anger which stands between us, then must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt or for further separation."

Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger,” Sister Outsider, p. 123

May 6, 2013
Pain IS Mutable ~ Audre Lorde

#Impermanence #AudreLordeWisdom #UniversalTruth

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Photo credit: Dagmar Schultz

“…Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it. I always thought I had a very low threshold for physical pain, that I could not take it and that was that. I did not know how to stand still gracefully when I got beaten, which was every day. I passed out in dentists’ offices. And there was always the secret fear of it. Recently, I had a physical experience that was ghastly and terrible—and wonderful because it taught me about pain.

Not long ago I unlocked the old window of my very old Victorian house on Staten Island. Somehow the chain broke and the window fell down immediately and caught my hand. There was no way to pull it out and every one was gone for the weekend. I broke the window and called for help, and it was seven minutes before someone came. I have the scars to remind me. It was crucial, that seven minutes. In it I lived the whole history of pain from start to finish. The genesis of pain, where you put it, how you channel it and how you end it. The choice was immediate: to die, or bear the pain. And what does bearing mean? It means changing or going through. It is not death. It is an experience encapsulated. It could stop. It could be ended. By chewing off my arm, for example. But this was not possible for me. So the pain is transformed. The intensity changes. It has to stop or it has to change. This was a physical knowledge that I had not had before, that pain has a mutability. That is very, very important, and that is just as true about emotional pain: it will change or stop. And the worst thing that can happen is death, but that is a whole different thing to involve yourself in. I felt at that point that there was nothing I could not do, nothing that I could not deal with, because pain will always either change or stop. Always. I have tested this since then, and it is always clear and workable…” ~ 1976 interview with Audre Lorde by Nina Winter featured in “Conversations with Audre Lorde,” (Joan Wylie Hall, editor), p. 16

January 25, 2013
Temple University Women’s Studies Department hosts Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Temple University Women’s Studies Department Presents:

Alexis Pauline Gumbs ~ “Daughters Dreams: Critical Reflection and Audre Lorde’s Dream Journal” ~

The public talk and reception will be held on:

Tuesday, February 12, 2012, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Temple University
Women’s Studies Lounge
821 Anderson Hall
1114 Polett St
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Alexis Pauline Gumbs earned her PhD in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies from Duke University. As the first person to do archival research in the papers of Audre Lorde (Spelman College), June Jordan (Harvard University), and Lucille Clifton (Emory University), she honors the lives and creative works of Black feminist geniuses as sacred texts for all people. Dr. Gumbs is the founder of BrokenBeautiful Press, Brilliance Remastered, Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and the co-creator of the Queer Black MobileHomecoming Project.

A widely published essayist on topics from the abolition of marriage to the power of dreams to the genius of enslaved African ancestors, Dr. Gumbs’ work appears in publications as varied as Signs, American Book Review, Make/Shift, Left Turn, The Crisis, Ms. Magazine, The Feminist Wire, Obsidian. Additionally, she has essays in many academic and activist books including The Revolution Starts at Home, The Black Imagination, Abolition Now!, Does Your Mama Know and the Women’s Studies classroom staple Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions. Dr. Gumbs serves on the editorial collective of the wide-reaching online news source The Feminist Wire and as primary editor of several successful websites including That Little Black Book, Bright New Day and Black Feminism Lives.

For more information about Alexis Pauline Gumbs http://alexispauline.com/

December 3, 2012
“Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years (1984-1992)” home video version is AVAILABLE

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Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years (1984-1992) by Dagmar Schultz is available for home video purchase

Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 -1992
The DVD has over 70 minutes of extra material, including Audre reading her poetry and reflecting on her work, meeting with South African author and activist Ellen Kuzwayo, an interview with Dagmar Schultz, a music clip byCorasón, whose music is in the film, and many more scenes of Audre Lorde in Berlin. The film has subtitles in German, French and Spanish! The German DVD is available from Edition Salzgeber in Berlin; the French DVD is available 

Click HERE for more information about the film.

Click HERE to purchase your DVD today.


November 28, 2012

“What Freedom Feels Like: On Love, Empathy, and Pleasure in the Age of Neoliberalism” ~ Darnell L. Moore (Audre Lorde Human Rights Lecture Series, The Kennedy School,
Harvard University)

November 17, 2012
"The Master’s tools will NEVER dismantle the master’s house"

— Audre Lorde/Gamba Adisa (February 18, 1934 - November 17, 1992)

November 17, 2012
"In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction."

— Audre Lorde/Gamba Adisa (February 18, 1934 - November 17, 1992)

November 17, 2012
"What ever I have done in my life I have done IN SPITE of tremendous fear"

Audre Lorde/GAMBA ADISA (February 18, 1934 - November 17, 1992)

November 17, 2012

Audre Lorde/Gamba Adisa (February 18, 1934 - November 17, 1992)

ARCHIVED LIVESTREAM FROM: 
Celebration Audre Lorde: 20 Years Later (Hunter College, Women’s & Gender Studies, October 12, 2012)

Introduction and Welcome Rupal Oza,

Panel I: Age, Race, Class, Sex: Intersectionalities

Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Rich Blint, Ange-Marie Hancock, Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Moderated by Jeremy M. Glick

November 9, 2012
"

“…It’s subversive to take care of ourselves because for centuries black women worldwide have been taking care of others, from the children of slave masters to those of business executives, and often serving today as primary caregivers for the elderly as home health workers and nursing home employees. Black women’s self-care is also subversive because to take care of ourselves means that we disrupt societal and political paradigms that say that Black women are disposable, unvalued. Indeed, people and things that aren’t cared for are considered expendable. So when we don’t take care of ourselves, we are affirming the social order that says black women are disposable.

But when we support our sisters and admonish that they too take care of themselves, we engage in radical feminist praxis. Yes, working out regularly is revolutionary. Eating healthfully and doing what feeds the spirit are nothing short of outright rebellion. When sisters unite in self-care, regularly indulging in what they love such as dancing, painting, laughing – soul and sanity food – we’re engaged in a soulful insurrection that disrupts the very forces that seek to sacrifice our beings. And, quite matter-of-factly, if we don’t take care of ourselves, who will?…”

~ Shanesha Brooks-Tatum, “Subversive Self-Care: Centering Black Women’s Wellness”
(Day 10: The Feminist Wire’s Forum on Black Women’s Health)

http://thefeministwire.com/2012/11/subversive-self-care-centering-black-womens-wellness/

"

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