I was recently reflecting on a speech by Audre Lorde entitled "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action. In it Lorde states:
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living.
What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself - a Black woman warrior poet doing my work - come to ask you, are you doing yours?
A bold and beautiful woman who I am sorry I never met. Like many, I started the new year in heavy reflection on my life. The choices I have made and those I have avoided. The last two years I have been running through the motions in some respects and I can't help but cringe at Lorde's final question "are you doing yours?" because I am afraid my answer may be no. The great thing about life though is that we may not be promised tomorrow but we have today, right now, to stop living lives of silence and to make a little noise.
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