Audre Lorde Taught Us: 'Survival Is Not Theoretical'
The poet and author taught generations of Black women to fight for access to the full spectrum of womanhood. The restoration of a documentary about her life and work couldn't come at a better time.
“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you…What are the words you do not have yet? 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?”
— Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” 1978.
Honored with the task of reporting on the restoration of the 1995 documentary A Litany For Survival, The Life And Work of Audre Lorde—made possible by a collaboration between Black women-led cultural institutions: Black Public Media, BlackStar Projects, Black Women Radicals, Firelight Media, and Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project—my entry point was relatively clear. As Donald Trump continues to terrorize Black, Latine, Indigenous and AANHPI communities through policies enacted to sanitize and deepen the legacy of white supremacist pathology in this nation, Lorde’s work is both North Star and a call to action. She taught us that “survival is not theoretical,” that the everyday mundanity of racism reverberating through targeted communities further endangers people who were never supposed to survive free.
If one so happens to be blessed to exist at the intersection of Black and woman, those dangers are heightened. From health care to food apartheid to climate injustice to police brutality, systemic oppression has always been mapped across the bodies and souls of Black women. Lorde, who defined herself as Black, lesbian, feminist, warrior, poet and mother, laid bare the spoils of a society birthed from our labor and pain. Her work, much like my own, was heavily influenced by Mississippi, Malcolm X and motherhood. She understood fully that Black women have had to fight for access to the full spectrum of womanhood. And through her poetry and prose, she taught generations of Black feminists to understand the same—writing about it, speaking about it—with a fire that continues to fuel a righteous and useful rage.
According to the press release announcing the restoration of A Litany For Survival: “[With] over 20,000 books banned in the last few years, 403 university DEI programs dismantled, federal agencies have stripped LGBTQIA+ terminology from public documents—this preservation is a political necessity.”
Yes, we currently exist under a fascist regime that has prioritized overwriting entire histories to protect and further entrench the lie of one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. But Lorde taught us to excavate honesty. Neither the truth nor lies can remain buried. Because this is the nation of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and the Ku Klux Klan and the lynching of little Emmett Till. This is the nation where white supremacists destroyed Black Wall Street; where the Philadelphia Police Department, with the full support of city officials, carried out the MOVE Bombing, killing 11 people, including five children.
Be clear: This is not Donald Trump’s America; the United States of America made it possible for Donald Trump to exist.
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