Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Straight-backed and indignant, one by one, my family and I got down from the counter stools and turned around and marched out of the store, quiet and outraged, as if we had never been Black before. No one would answer my emphatic questions with anything other than a guilty silence. “But we hadn’t done anything!” This wasn’t right or fair! Hadn’t I written poems about Bataan and freedom and democracy for all? My parents wouldn’t speak of this injustice, not because they had contributed to it, but because they felt they should have anticipated it and avoided it. This made me even angrier. My fury was not going to be acknowledged by a like fury. Even my two sisters copied my parents’ pretense that nothing unusual and anti-american had occurred. I was left to write my angry letter to the president of the united states all by myself, although my father did promise I could type it out on the office typewriter next week, after I showed it to him in my copybook diary. The waitress was white, and the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington, D.C. that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and the white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the whole rest of that trip and it wasn’t much of a graduation present after all. I Am Your Sister Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities Whenever I come to Medgar Evers College I always feel a thrill of anticipation and delight because it feels like coming home, like talking to family, having a chance to speak about things that are very important to me with people who matter the most. And this is particularly true whenever I talk at the Women’s Center. But, as with all families, we sometimes find it difficult to deal constructively with the genuine differences between us and to recognize that unity does not require that we be identical to each other. Black women are not one great vat of homogenized chocolate milk. We have many different faces, and we do not have to become each other in order to work together. It is not easy for me to speak here with you as a Black Lesbian feminist, recognizing that some of the ways in which I identify myself make it difficult for you to hear me. But meeting across difference always requires mutual stretching, and until you can hear me as a Black Lesbian feminist, our strengths will not be truly available to each other as Black women.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  If the problems of Black women are only derivatives of a larger contradiction between capital and labor, then so is racism, and both must be fought by all of us. The capitalist structure is a many-headed monster. I might add here that in no socialist country that I have visited have I found an absence of racism or of sexism, so the eradication of both of these diseases seems to involve more than the abolition of capitalism as an institution. No reasonable Black man can possibly condone the rape and slaughter of Black women by Black men as a fitting response to capitalist oppression. And destruction of Black women by Black men clearly cuts across all class lines. Whatever the “structural underpinnings” (Staples) for sexism in the Black community may be, it is obviously Black women who are bearing the brunt of that sexism, and so it is in our best interest to abolish it. We invite our Black brothers to join us, since ultimately that abolition is in their best interests also. For Black men are also diminished by a sexism which robs them of meaningful connections to Black women and our struggles. Since it is Black women who are being abused, however, and since it is our female blood that is being shed, it is for Black women to decide whether or not sexism in the Black community is pathological. And we do not approach that discussion theoretically. Those “creative relationships” which Staples speaks about within the Black community are almost invariably those which operate to the benefit of Black males, given the Black male/female ratio and the implied power balance within a supply and demand situation. Polygamy is seen as “creative,” but a lesbian relationship is not. This is much the same as how the “creative relationships” between master and slave were always those benefiting the master. The results of woman-hating in the Black community are tragedies which diminish all Black people. These acts must be seen in the context of a systematic devaluation of Black women within this society. It is within this context that we become approved and acceptable targets for Black male rage, so acceptable that even a Black male social scientist condones and excuses this depersonalizing abuse. This abuse is no longer acceptable to Black women in the name of solidarity, nor of Black liberation. Any dialogue between Black women and Black men must begin there, no matter where it ends. * “The Myth of the Black Matriarchy” by Robert Staples in The Black Scholar, vol. 1, no. 3–4 (January–February 1970).† From We Will Make A River, poems by Mary McAnnally (West End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979), p. 27.The Uses of Anger Women Responding to Racism Racism. The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance, manifest and implied.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Someone else is very sick next door, and the vibes are almost too painful to bear. But I must stop saying that now so glibly. Someday something will, in fact, be too painful to bear and then I will have to act. Does one simply get tired of living? I can’t imagine right now what that would be like, but that is because I feel filled with a fury to live—because I believe life can be good even when it is painful—a fury that my energies just don’t match my desires anymore. December 25, 1985 Arlesheim Good morning, Christmas. A Swiss bubble is keeping me from talking to my children and the women I love. The front desk won’t put my calls through. Nobody here wants to pierce this fragile, delicate bubble that is the best of all possible worlds, they believe. So frighteningly insular. Don’t they know good things get better by opening them up to others, giving and taking and changing? Most people here seem to feel that rigidity is a bona fide pathway to peace, and every fiber of me rebels against that. December 26, 1985 Arlesheim Adrienne [Rich] and Michelle [Cliff] and Gloria [Joseph] just called from California. I feel so physically cut off from the people I love. I need them, the sharing of grief and energy. I am avoiding plunging directly into the nightmare of liver cancer as a fact of my life by edging into it like an icy bath. I am trying to edge my friends into it, too, without having to deal with more of their fury and grief than I can handle. There is some we share, and that mutual support makes us closer and more resolved. But there is some that they will have to deal with on their own, just as there is some fury and grief that I can only meet in a private place. Frances has been so true and staunch here. It is more difficult for her sometimes because she does not have the fount of desperate determination that survival is generating inside me. There is so much to keep track of. I think it’s crucial that I not only suffer this but record, in the fullness and the lean, some of the raw as well as digested qualities of now. Last night there was a Christmas full moon, and it felt like a hopeful sign. I stood out in the road in front of the hospital under the full moon on Christmas night and thought about all of my beloved people, the women I love, my children, my family, all the dear faces before my eyes. The moon was so clear and bright, I could feel her upon my skin through Helen’s fur coat. After I had gone to bed she called me back to her twice. The first time I could not pierce through the veil of sleep, but I saw her light and heard her in my dreams.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  216 James Baldwin gottenit yet/ she added, In spite ofyou.I'm not going to forget it. Fm gettingout ofthis house, away from you, justas fastas taxis, trains, and boats will carry me/ Andin the room which hadbeen ourbed- room in the beginning of our lifeinthishouse, she movedwith the desperate hasteofsomeone about to flee— from the open suitcaseon the bed, to thechest of drawers,tothecloset. I stood in thedoorway, watching her. I stood there theway a small boy whohas wethis pants stands beforehis teacher.Allthe words Iwanted to say closed mythroat, likeweeds,and stopped my mouth. 1 wish,anyway/ 1 saidatlast,'that you'd be- lieve mewhen Isay that, ifIwas lying, Iwasn't lying to you* She turned toward me with aterrible face. 7 was the one youwere talking to. Iwasthe one youwanted tocomewith you tothis terrible houseinthe middle ofnowhere. I was the one yousaid you wanted to marry T 1 mean/ I said, 1waslying to myself/ 'Oh/said Hella, 1see. That makes every- thingdifferent, of course.' 1 only mean tosay,' Ishouted, 'that whatever I've done tohurt you, I didn't mean to doT T)on'tshout/said Hella. TU soon be gone. Thenyoucanshout it to those hills outthere, shout it to the peasants, how guilty youare, how you loveto beguilty 1' Shestarted moving back and forth again, GIOVANNI'S ROOM 217 moreslowly,from the suitcasetothe chest of drawers. Her hair was damp andfell over her forehead, andherfacewas damp. I longed to reachoutandtakeherinmy arms andcomfort her.Butthatwouldnotbe comfortanymore, only torture, forboth of us. Shedid not lookatme asshe moved, but kept lookingattheclothes shewas packing, as thoughshe were notsure theywerehers. 'But I knew' she said, 1 knew. This is what makesme so ashamed. I knew iteverytime you lookedatme. I knew it everytime wewentto bed.Ifonly you hadtold me the truth then. Don'tyousee how unjust it was to wait for me to find it out? To put all the burden on me? I hadtheright to expectto hearfrom you— womenare always waitingforthe man tospeak. Or hadn't youheard?' I saidnothing. 1 wouldn't havehad to spendallthistime in this house; I wouldn't be wonderinghowin the nameofGodI'm going to standthat longtrip back. I'dbe home by now, dancing with some man who wantedto make me.And I'd let him makeme, too,why not?' Andshesmiled be- wilderedly at a crowdof nylon stockingsin her hand and carefullycrushed themin the suitcase. 'PerhapsIdidn't know it then.I onlyknew I had to get out of Giovanni's room.' 'Well,' she said, *you'reout. Andnow I'm gettingout. It's onlypoor Giovanniwho's — lost his head.'

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  And then I decided to contact one of my professors who had liked my work, to see if he had any ideas. That was real tough for me because I never expect anyone to come through for me. He asked me lots of questions about how I had been able to go to school during the day and work all night and why it had taken me six years instead of the usual four. Bottom line, he said he liked my work, said I had talent and grit, and recommended me to another former student who was starting a new company. The rest is history.” “That’s a very nice story. And it’s a tribute to you.” Larry looked at me soberly and said, “That’s the only time in my life that I’ve gotten help from a man. ” “I take it your dad didn’t help with your education?” He hooted. “Not a cent. The only good thing is that I didn’t expect any help. My dad is a taker, not a giver. He’s never thought of anyone in his life except himself. He’s a smart man. He can be a charmer when he puts himself out. He has a good sense of humor. But he has never made sacrifices for anyone. He’s selfish through and through. I used to think he was a hero, a great man. I even thought that he loved me. He kept telling me, ‘You’re my favorite.’ If that’s true, hell must have a special place for those who are their father’s favorite child.” I was taken aback by Larry’s bitterness. “What’s your relationship now? Do you ever see your dad?” “I see him rarely. Once or twice a year. We talk on the telephone. We chat about work. About the weather. We tell each other dirty jokes. But that’s the extent of it. We don’t communicate on a deeper level.” “Do you miss not having a closer relationship?” “I don’t really care to be close to him now,” Larry said evenly. Then, more gently, he added, “Sometimes I feel bad. Like I heard recently that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and I’m sorry. But the truth is that my sister and I can’t be there for him. We’re still angry at him, even after all this time.” I wondered whether Larry’s father was aware of these feelings. “Tell me, did you ever try to tell him how hurt you were feeling or to talk about having a different kind of relationship?” Larry looked away and then stared down at his hands, inspecting his fingernails. “I did try. I tried to tell him about the issues between us that hurt me.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Now I am sure there are still some Black men who marry white women because they feel a white woman can better fit the model of “femininity” set forth in this country. But for Staples to justify that act using the reason it occurs, and take Black women to task for it, is not only another error in reasoning; it is like justifying the actions of a lemming who follows its companions over the cliff to sure death. Because it happens does not mean it should happen, nor that it is functional for the well-being of the individual nor the group. It is not the destiny of Black america to repeat white america’s mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life. If Black men continue to define “femininity” instead of their own desires, and to do it in archaic european terms, they restrict our access to each other’s energies. Freedom and future for Blacks does not mean absorbing the dominant white male disease of sexism. As Black women and men, we cannot hope to begin dialogue by denying the oppressive nature of male privilege. And if Black males choose to assume that privilege for whatever reason—raping, brutalizing, and killing Black women—then ignoring these acts of Black male oppression within our communities can only serve our destroyers. One oppression does not justify another. It has been said that Black men cannot be denied their personal choice of the woman who meets their need to dominate. In that case, Black women also cannot be denied our personal choices, and those choices are becomingly increasingly self-assertive and female-oriented. As a people, we most certainly must work together. It would be shortsighted to believe that Black men alone are to blame for the above situations in a society dominated by white male privilege. But the Black male consciousness must be raised to the realization that sexism and woman-hating are critically dysfunctional to his liberation as a Black man because they arise out of the same constellation that engenders racism and homophobia. Until that consciousness is developed, Black men will view sexism and the destruction of Black women as tangential to Black liberation rather than as central to that struggle. So long as this occurs, we will never be able to embark upon that dialogue between Black women and Black men that is so essential to our survival as a people. This continued blindness between us can only serve the oppressive system within which we live. Men avoid women’s observations by accusing us of being too “visceral.” But no amount of understanding the roots of Black woman-hating will bring back Patricia Cowan, nor mute her family’s loss. Pain is very visceral, particularly to the people who are hurting. As the poet Mary McAnally said, “Pain teaches us to take our fingers OUT the fucking fire.”*

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  We have many different faces, and we do not have to become each other in order to work together. It is not easy for me to speak here with you as a Black Lesbian feminist, recognizing that some of the ways in which I identify myself make it difficult for you to hear me. But meeting across difference always requires mutual stretching, and until you can hear me as a Black Lesbian feminist, our strengths will not be truly available to each other as Black women. Because I feel it is urgent that we not waste each other’s resources, that we recognize each sister on her own terms so that we may better work together toward our mutual survival, I speak here about heterosexism and homophobia, two grave barriers to organizing among Black women. And so that we have a common language between us, I would like to define some of the terms I use: Heterosexism—a belief in the inherent superiority of one form of loving over all others and thereby the right to dominance. Homophobia—a terror surrounding feelings of love for members of the same sex and thereby a hatred of those feelings in others. In the 1960s, when liberal white people decided that they didn’t want to appear racist, they wore dashikis, and danced Black, and ate Black, and even married Black, but they did not want to feel Black or think Black, so they never even questioned the textures of their daily living (why should “flesh- colored” Bandaids always be pink?) and then they wondered, “Why are those Black folks always taking offense so easily at the least little thing? Some of our best friends are Black . . .” Well, it is not necessary for some of your best friends to be Lesbian, although some of them probably are, no doubt. But it is necessary for you to stop oppressing me through false judgment. I do not want you to ignore my identity, nor do I want you to make it an insurmountable barrier between our sharing of strengths. When I say I am a Black feminist, I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my Blackness as well as my womanness, and therefore my struggles on both these fronts are inseparable. When I say I am a Black Lesbian, I mean I am a woman whose primary focus of loving, physical as well as emotional, is directed to women. It does not mean I hate men. Far from it. The harshest attacks I have ever heard against Black men come from those women who are intimately bound to them and cannot free themselves from a subservient and silent position.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  And these same white immigrant settlers were giving blankets lethal with smallpox germs to the indigenous peoples of North America, the American Indians. Each of you has come here today to touch some piece of your own power, for a purpose. I urge you to approach that work with a particular focus and urgency, for a terrible amount of Wurundjeri women’s blood has already been shed in order for you to sit and write here. I do not say these things to instigate an orgy of guilt, but rather to encourage an examination of what the excavation and use of the true language of difference can mean within your living. You and I can talk about the language of difference, but that will always remain essentially a safe discussion, because this is not my place. I will move on. But it is the language of the Black Aboriginal women of this country that you must learn to hear and to feel. And as your writing and your lives intersect within that language, you will come to decide what mistress your art must serve. October 24, 1985 East Lansing, Michigan Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the invasion of Grenada. The smallest nation in the western hemisphere occupied by the largest. I spoke about it to a group of Black women here tonight. It’s depressing to see how few of us remember, how few of us still seem to care. The conference on “The Black Woman Writer and the Diaspora” being held here is problematic in some ways, particularly in the unclear position of Ellen Kuzwayo, who had come all the way from South Africa to give the keynote address and arrived here to find the schedule shifted. But it was so good to see Ellen again. I’m sorry to hear her sister in Botswana has had another mastectomy. It’s been very exciting to sit down with African and Caribbean women writers whom I’ve always wanted to meet. Octavia Butler is here also, and Andrea Canaan from New Orleans. I haven’t seen her in over a year, and the look in her eyes when she saw me made me really angry, but it also made me realize how much weight I’ve lost in the past year and how bad my color’s been since I came home from Australia. I’ve got to go see Dr. C. for a checkup when I get home.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  It’s been very reassuring to find a medical doctor who agrees with my view of the dangers involved. And I certainly don’t reject nondamaging treatment, which is why I’m taking these shots, even though I hate giving myself injections. But that’s a small price balanced against the possibility of cancer. June 20, 1984 Berlin I didn’t go to London because I loved book fairs, but because the idea of the First International Feminist Bookfair excited me, and in particular, I wanted to make contact with the Black feminists of England. Well, the fact remains: the First International Feminist Bookfair was a monstrosity of racism, and this racism coated and distorted much of what was good, creative, and visionary about such a fair. The white women organizers’ defensiveness to any question of where the Black women were is rooted in that tiresome white guilt that serves neither us nor them. It reminded me of those old tacky battles of the seventies in the States: a Black woman would suggest that if white women wished to be truly feminist, they would have to examine and alter some of their actions vis-à-vis women of Color. And this discussion would immediately be perceived as an attack upon their very essence. So wasteful and destructive. I think the organizers of the bookfair really believed that by inviting foreign Black women they were absolving themselves of any fault in ignoring input from local Black women. But we should be able to learn from our errors. They totally objectified all Black women by not dealing with the Black women of the London community. Now if anything is to be learned from that whole experience, it should be so that the next International Feminist Bookfair does not repeat those errors. And there must be another. But we don’t get there from here by ignoring the mud in between those two positions. If the white women’s movement does not learn from its errors, like any other movement, it will die by them. When I stood up for my first reading to a packed house with no Black women’s faces, after I’d gotten letter after letter from Black British women asking when was I coming to England, that was the kiss- off. I knew immediately what was up, and the rest is history. Of course, I was accused of “brutalizing” the organizers by simply asking why Black women were absent. And if my yelling and “jumping up and down” got dirty looks and made white women cry and say all kinds of outrageous nonsense about me, I know it also reinforced other Black women’s perceptions about racism here in the women’s movement, and contributed to further solidarity among Black women of different communities.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  But you did not know it because we did not identify ourselves, so now you can say that Black Lesbians and Gay men have nothing to do with the struggles of the Black Nation. And I am not alone. When you read the words of Langston Hughes you are reading the words of a Black Gay man. When you read the words of Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Angelina Weld Grimké, poets of the Harlem Renaissance, you are reading the words of Black Lesbians. When you listen to the life-affirming voices of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, you are hearing Black Lesbian women. When you see the plays and read the words of Lorraine Hansberry, you are reading the words of a woman who loved women deeply. Today, Lesbians and Gay men are some of the most active and engaged members of Art Against Apartheid, a group which is making visible and immediate our cultural responsibilities against the tragedy of South Africa. We have organizations such as the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, Dykes Against Racism Everywhere, and Men of All Colors Together, all of which are committed to and engaged in antiracist activity. Homophobia and heterosexism mean you allow yourselves to be robbed of the sisterhood and strength of Black Lesbian women because you are afraid of being called a Lesbian yourself. Yet we share so many concerns as Black women, so much work to be done. The urgency of the destruction of our Black children and the theft of young Black minds are joint urgencies. Black children shot down or doped up on the streets of our cities are priorities for all of us. The fact of Black women’s blood flowing with grim regularity in the streets and living rooms of Black communities is not a Black Lesbian rumor. It is sad statistical truth. The fact that there is widening and dangerous lack of communication around our differences between Black women and men is not a Black Lesbian plot. It is a reality that is starkly clarified as we see our young people becoming more and more uncaring of each other. Young Black boys believing that they can define their manhood between a sixth-grade girl’s legs, growing up believing that Black women and girls are the fitting target for their justifiable furies rather than the racist structures grinding us all into dust, these are not Black Lesbian myths. These are sad realities of Black communities today and of immediate concern to us all. We cannot afford to waste each other’s energies in our common battles. What does homophobia mean?

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Dr. Bigge thought the offence very grave: “the morals of a boy”, he declared, “were the most important part of his education: the matter must be probed to the bottom: he thought that on reflection I would not deny that I had seen a College boy that night in colors and in suspicious company.” I thereupon got up and freed my soul; the whole crew seemed to me mere hypocrites. “In the Doctor’s own House”, I said, “where I take evening preparation, I could give him a list of boys who are known as lovers, notorious even, and so long as this vice is winked at throughout the school, I shall be no party to persecuting anybody for yielding to legitimate and natural passion.” I had hardly got out the last words when Cotteril, the son of the Bishop of Edinburgh, got up and called upon me to free his House from any such odious and unbearable suspicion. I retorted immediately that there was a pair in his house known as “The Inseparables” and went on to state that my quarrel was with the whole boardinghouse system and not with individual masters who, I was fain to believe, did their best. The Vice-principal, Dr. Newton, was the only one who even recognized my good motives: he came away from the meeting with me and advised me to consult with his wife. After this I was practically boycotted by the masters: I had dared to say in public what Wolverton and others of them had admitted to me in private a dozen times. Mrs. Newton, the vice-principal’s wife, was one of the leaders of Brighton society: she was what the French call une maitresse femme, and a born leader in any society. She advised me to form girls’ classes in literature for the half-holidays each week; was good enough to send out the circulars and lend her drawing-room for my first lectures. In a week I had fifty pupils who paid me half a crown a lesson and I soon found myself drawing ten pounds a week in addition to my pay. I saved every penny and thus came in a year to monetary freedom. At every crisis in my life I have been helped by good friends who have aided me out of pure kindness at cost of time and trouble to themselves. Smith helped me in Lawrence and Mrs. Newton at Brighton out of bountiful human sympathy. Before this even I had got to know a man named Harold Hamilton, manager of the London & County Bank, I think, at Brighton. It amused him to see how quickly and regularly my balance grew: soon I confided my plans to him and my purpose: he was all sympathy. I lent him books and his daughter Ada was assiduous at all my lectures.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  206 JamesBaldwin come, and Guillaume has hiswill.I think ifthis hadnot happened, Giovanniwouldnot have killedhtm. For,with his pleasure taken,andwhile Gio- vannistilllies suffocating, Guillaumebecomes a business man once moreand,walking up anddown, givesexcellent reasons whyGiovanni cannot workfor him anymore. Beneathwhat- everreasonsGuillaume invents,thereal one lies hidden, andtheyboth, dimly,intheir different fashions,seeit: Giovanni, like afallingmovie star, has lost his drawing power. Everything isknownabouthtm,hissecrecy has beendis- covered. Giovannicertainly feelsthis andthe ragewhich hasbeen building inhim formany monthsbegins tobe swollen nowwdth themem- ory ofGuillaume'shandsand mouth. Hestares atGuillaume in silence for amomentand then begins to shout. And Guillaume answers him. Withevery wordexchanged Giovanni's head beginsto roarand ablackness comesandgoes before hiseyes. AndGuillaumeis in seventh heaven andbegtns topranceabout the room — hehas scarcely evergottensomuchforso little before. Heplaysthissceneforallit'sworth, deeply rejoictnginthefactthatGiovanni's face grows scarlet,and his voicethick,watching with pure deUghtthe bone-hard musclesinhis neck.Andhe says something, forhethinksthe tableshave been turned;hesayssomething, one phrase,one insult, onemockery too many; andin a spUt second,in his ownshocked si- GIOVANNI'S ROOM 207 lence, in Giovannfs eyes, he realizes that he has unleashed something he cannot turn back. Giovanni certainly did not mean todo it.But he grabbed him, he struck him. Andwith that touch, and with each blow, the intolerable weightat the bottom of his heart beganto lift: now itwas Giovanni's turnto be delighted.The roomwas overturned, the fabrics were shredded, the odor of perfume was thick. Guillaume strug- gled to getoutof the room,but Giovannifol- lowed him everywhere:now it was Guillaume's turntobe surrounded. And perhapsatthevery moment Guillaumethoughthe had brokenfree, when he had reached the door perhaps,Gio- vannilungedafterhim andcaught him bythe sash ofthe dressing gown andwrappedthe sash around hisneck.Thenhesimplyheld on,sob- bing, becoming lightereverymomentasGuil- laume grewheavier, tighteningthe sashand cursing. Then Guillaume fell.AndGiovanni fell —back intothe room,thestreets, the world, into the presence andthe shadow ofdeath. Bythe time wefound thisgreat house it was clear that I had no right to comehere. By the time we found it, Idid not even want tosee it. But bythis time, also, there wasnothing else to do. There wasnothing else I wanted todo. I thought, itis true, ofremaining in Paris in order tobe close to the trial, perhaps to visithim in prison. But Iknew there wasno reason to do

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Billy’s experience with higher education is typical of what happened to many of the young people in this study who had college-educated parents. In his case, support was cut off in the middle of his freshman year. For others the cut came later or was aborted from the start. These children worked hard to gain admittance to a public university with high standards and often found part-time jobs to help pay tuition. Their parents promised to foot all or part of the remaining expenses but then broke their promise, with no warning. Checks suddenly failed to arrive. Embarrassed, discouraged, and angry, they opted for a solution that fit their earlier experiences: they dropped out and gave up or they faced years of hard work that they viewed as simply another legacy of their parents’ divorce. Their parents, meanwhile, offered no explanation or apology for their failure to help. Numbers sometimes tell a very dramatic story. The people in our divorce and comparison groups grew up side by side on the same streets, attended the same public high schools, and most of their fathers earned the same good incomes. When I compared everyone’s financial support for college, I was astounded. A little less than 30 percent of the youngsters from divorced families received full or consistently partial support for college compared with almost 90 percent of youngsters in intact families.6 That’s a whopping difference that speaks volumes about how children of divorce lead an entirely different life compared to their next-door peers in intact families. Their entry into adulthood begins painfully and precipitously—and very differently from their closest friends. The bottom line is that millions of young people, who might have expected and received financial help and encouragement from their families, now hear after divorce: You want a college education? You pay for it.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change. To those women here who fear the anger of women of Color more than their own unscrutinized racist attitudes, I ask: Is the anger of women of Color more threatening than the woman-hatred that tinges all aspects of our lives? It is not the anger of other women that will destroy us but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment. I cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt, nor hurt feelings, nor answering anger; for to do so insults and trivializes all our efforts. Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness. Most women have not developed tools for facing anger constructively. CR groups in the past, largely white, dealt with how to express anger, usually at the world of men. And these groups were made up of white women who shared the terms of their oppressions. There was usually little attempt to articulate the genuine differences between women, such as those of race, color, age, class, and sexual identity. There was no apparent need at that time to examine the contradictions of self, woman as oppressor. There was work on expressing anger, but very little on anger directed against each other. No tools were developed to deal with other women’s anger except to avoid it, deflect it, or flee from it under a blanket of guilt. I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Most women have not developed tools for facing anger constructively. CR groups in the past, largely white, dealt with how to express anger, usually at the world of men. And these groups were made up of white women who shared the terms of their oppressions. There was usually little attempt to articulate the genuine differences between women, such as those of race, color, age, class, and sexual identity. There was no apparent need at that time to examine the contradictions of self, woman as oppressor. There was work on expressing anger, but very little on anger directed against each other. No tools were developed to deal with other women’s anger except to avoid it, deflect it, or flee from it under a blanket of guilt. I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees. If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you: I have not put a gun to your head and shot you down in the street; I have not looked at your bleeding sister’s body and asked, “What did she do to deserve it?” This was the reaction of two white women to Mary Church Terrell’s telling of the lynching of a pregnant Black woman whose baby was then torn from her body. That was in 1921, and Alice Paul had just refused to publicly endorse the enforcement of the Nineteenth Amendment for all women—by refusing to endorse the inclusion of women of Color, although we had worked to help bring about that amendment. The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying. When we turn from anger we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar. I have tried to learn my anger’s usefulness to me, as well as its limitations. For women raised to fear, too often anger threatens annihilation. In the male construct of brute force, we were taught that our lives depended upon the good will of patriarchal power. The anger of others was to be avoided at all costs because there was nothing to be learned from it but pain, a judgment that we had been bad girls, come up lacking, not done what we were supposed to do. And if we accept our powerlessness, then of course any anger can destroy us.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  142 James Baldwin streets, et il a fait ceci et il a fait cela, every- thing for me because he thought I was adorable, yarce qu'il rrCadorait—and on and on and that I had no gratitude and no decency. I maybe handled it all very badly, I know how I would have done it even a few months ago, I would have made him scream, I would have made him kiss my feet, je te jure!—but I did not want to do that, I really did not want to be dirty with him. I tried to be serious. I told him that I had never told him any lies and I had always said that I did not want to be lovers with him and—he had given me the job all the same. I said I worked very hard and was very honest with him and that it was not my fault if—if—if I did not feel for him as he felt for me. Then he reminded me that once—one time— and I did not want to say yes, but I was weak from hunger and had had trouble not to vomit. I was still trying to be calm and trying to handle it right. So I said, Mais a ce moment Id je n'avais pas un copain. I am not alone anymore, je suis avec un gars maintenant I thought he would understand that, he is very fond of ro- mance and the dream of fidelity. But not this time. He laughed and said a few more awful things about you, and he said that you were just an American boy, after all, doing things in France which you would not dare to do at home, and that you would leave me very soon. Then, at last, I got angry and I said that he did not pay me a salary for listening to slander and GIOVANNrS ROOM 143 then I heard someone come into the bar down- stairs so I turned around without saying any- thing more and walked out/ He stopped in front of me. 'Can I have some more cognac?' he asked, with a smile. 1 won't break the glass this time/ I gave him my glass. He emptied it and handed it back. He watched my face. 'Don't be afraid/ he said. "We will be alright. I am not afraid.' Then his eyes darkened, he looked again toward the windows.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  We are very proud of how we helped each other. We are still very close.” SEVEN The Wages of Violence P eople commonly think there is a “his” divorce and a “her” divorce—two versions of the same events that hardly seem alike. But there is a third version, as valid and divergent as the others. It’s the “child’s view” of divorce. The child’s experience would astonish both parents … if they knew. L ARRY REMEMBERS the last night of his parents’ marriage in violent fragments, as if the memories had been cut into sections with a sharp knife and inserted deeply into his brain. He was not quite seven years old, small enough to crouch under the stairwell but big enough to realize what was happening. His father, who was drunk, followed his mother from room to room, slapping her across the face and upper body, screaming at her for sins Larry could not comprehend. The beatings had been going on for three years until that night, when his mother decided she had had enough. After her husband stomped out, she scooped up Larry and his younger sister and went to spend the night at a motel . Before that night, the Litrovski family had all lived in a green clapboard house in a middle-class section of Monterey, California, where Larry’s father, who had learned four languages from his parents, taught Russian at the Monterey Language Institute. He was a disturbed, angry man whose violent outbursts stemmed from early life experiences that neither he nor anyone close to him knew much about. Larry’s mother taught Spanish at the public high school, speaking so softly that her students often had to strain to hear her. Like many abused women, Larry’s mother was ambivalent about her decision to file for divorce. “Children need a father,” she said, with tears falling down both cheeks. “I gave him children and a purpose, it was a shared dream.” Her voice faltered as she struggled to explain herself: “I hope I was important to him at one time.” With that, she began to cry openly. Larry’s mother was heartbroken but her children were furious. Like most young children in the abusive families that I have seen, they made no connection between the violence and the decision to divorce. Their mother told them that she was ending the marriage because their father “drank too much,” but this explanation made absolutely no sense to them. Drinking what? Milk? Soda? Orange juice? How could they know what “drinking” meant or how it affected their father’s behavior? Nor did they link the drinking with his violence. They were aware that their father hurt their mother, and they were very distressed at her pain, but they did not understand his taunts or the depth of her humiliation. Larry was especially enraged at what he considered his mother’s outrageous decision.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  II The first time I touched my sisteralive I was surethe earth took note but we were not new false skin peeled off like gloves of fire yoked flameI was stripped to the tips of my fingers her song written into my palms my nostrils my belly welcome home in a languageI was pleased to relearn. III No cold spirit ever strolled through my bones on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue no dog mistook me for a bench nor a treenor a bone no lover envisioned my plump brown arms as wingsnor misnamed me condor but I can recall without counting eyes cancelling me out like an unpleasant appointment postage due stamped in yellowredpurple any color except Blackand choice and woman alive. IV I cannot recall the words of my first poem but I remember a promise I made my pen never to leave it lying in somebody else’s blood. Outlines I What hue lies in the slit of anger ample and pure as night what color the channel blood comes through? A Black woman and a white woman charter our courses close in a sea of calculated distance warned away by reefs of hidden anger histories rallied against us the friendly face of cheap alliance. Jonquils through the Mississippi snow you entered my vision with the force of hurled rock defended by distance and a warning smile fossil tearspitched over the heart’s wall for protection no other women grown beyond safety come back to tell us whispering past the turned shoulders of our closest we were not the first Black woman white woman altering course to fit our own journey. In this treacherous sea even the act of turning is almost fatally difficult coming around full face into a driving storm putting an end to running before the wind. On a helix of white the letting of blood the face of my love and rage coiled in my brown arms an ache in the bone we cannot alter history by ignoring it nor the contradictions who we are.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  The break did not surprise me: I had taught her that youth was the first requisite in a lover for a woman of her type: she had doubtless put my precepts into practice: Mr. Wilson was probably as near the ideal as I was and very much nearer to hand. The passions of the senses demand propinquity and satisfaction and nothing is more forgetful than pleasures of the flesh. If Mrs. Mayhew had given me little, I had given her even less of my better self. * * * HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES Chapter XII. So far I had had more good fortune than falls to the lot of most youths starting in life; now I was to taste ill-luck and be tried as with fire. I had been so taken up with my own concerns that I had hardly given a thought to public affairs; now I was forced to take a wider view. One day Kate told me that Willie was heavily in arrears: he had gone back to Deacon Conkling’s to live on the other side of the Kaw River and I had naturally supposed that he had paid up everything before leaving. Now I found that he owed the Gregorys sixty dollars on his own account and more than that on mine. I went across to him really enraged. If he had warned me, I should not have minded so much; but to leave the Gregorys to tell me, made me positively dislike him and I did not know then the full extent of his selfishness. Years later my sister told me that he had written time and again to my father and got money from him, alleging that it was for me and that I was studying and couldn’t earn anything: “Willie kept us poor, Frank”, she said, and I could only bow my head; but if I had known this fact at the time, it would have changed all my relations with Willie. As it was, I found him in the depths. Carried away by his optimism, he had bought real estate in 1871 and 1872, mortgaged it for more than he gave and as the boom continued, he had repeated this game time and again till on paper and in paper he reckoned he had made a hundred thousand dollars. This he had told me and I was glad of it for his sake, unfeignedly glad.

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  In Revelation, there is nothing but blazing hatred for Rome. Rome is a Babylon, the mother of prostitutes, drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs (Revelation 17:5-6). John hopes for nothing but Rome's total destruction. The explanation of this change in attitude lies in the wide development of Caesar-worship, which, with its accompanying persecution, is the background of Revelation. By the time of Revelation, Caesar-worship was the one religion which covered the whole Roman Empire; and it was because of their refusal to conform to its demands that Christians were persecuted and killed. Its essence was that the reigning Roman emperor, who was seen to embody the spirit of Rome, was divine. Once a year, everyone in the Empire had to appear before the magistrates to burn a pinch of incense to the godhead of Caesar and to say: `Caesar is Lord.' After they had done that, people were able to go away and worship any god or goddess they liked, as long as that worship did not infringe decency and good order; but they had to go through this ceremony in which they acknowledged the emperor's divinity. The reason was very simple. Rome had a vast and diverse empire, stretching from one end of the known world to the other. It had in it many languages, races and traditions. The problem was how to weld this varied mass into a unity. There was no unifying force such as a common religion, and none of the national religions could conceivably have become universal. Caesar-worship could. It was the one common act and belief which turned the Empire into a unity. To refuse to burn the pinch of incense and to say: `Caesar is Lord' was not an act against religion; it was an act of political disloyalty. That is why the Romans dealt with the utmost severity with anyone who would not say: `Caesar is Lord.' And Christians could never give the title Lord to anyone other than Jesus Christ. This was the centre of their creed. We must see how this Caesar-worship developed and how it was at its peak when Revelation was written. One basic fact must be noted. Caesar-worship was not imposed on the people from above. It arose from the people; it might even be said that it arose in spite of efforts by the early emperors to stop it, or at least to curb it. And it is to be noted that, of all the people in the Empire, only the Jews were exempt from it. Caesar-worship began as a spontaneous outburst of gratitude to Rome. The people of the provinces knew very well what they owed to Rome. Impartial Roman justice had taken the place of inconsistent and tyrannical oppression. Security had taken the place of insecurity.