Black, Lesbian, Womanist

      We slipped off the cotton shifts we had worn and moved against each other’s damp breasts in the shadow of the roof’s chimney, making moon, honor, love, while the ghostly vague light drifting upward from the street competed with the silver hard sweetness of the full moon, reflected in the shiny mirrors of our sweat-slippery dark bodies, sacred as the ocean at high tide.

      Other Black women are not the root cause nor the source of that pool of anger. I know this, no matter what the particular situation may be between me and another Black Woman at that moment. Then why does that anger unleash itself most tellingly against another Black woman at the least excuse? Why do I judge her in a more critical light than any other, becoming enraged when she does not measure up?

      As Black women we have the right and responsibility to define ourselves and to see our allies in common cause: with Black men against racism and with each other and white women against sexism. But most of all, as Black women we have the right and responsibility to recognize each other without fear and to love where we choose.

      Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.

      I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you.

      Whenever a conscious Black woman raises her voice on issues central to her existence, somebody is going to call her strident, because they don’t want to hear about it, nor us. I refuse to be silenced and I refuse to be trivialized, even if I do not say what I have to say perfectly.

      The love expressed between women is particular and powerful because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our survival.