Your Silence Will Not Protect You.

I Am On The Cusp Of Change And The Curve Is Shifting Fast.

As A Black Lesbian Feminist Comfortable With The Many Different Ingredients Of My Identity, And A Woman Committed To Racial And Sexual Freedom From Oppression, I Find I Am Constantly Being Encouraged To Pluck Out Some One Aspect Of Myself And Present This As The Meaningful Whole, Eclipsing Or Denying The Other Parts Of Self. But This Is A Destructive And Fragmenting Way To Live.

Black Writers, Of Whatever Quality, Who Step Outside The Pale Of What Black Writers Are Supposed To Write About, Or Who Black Writers Are Supposed To Be, Are Condemned To Silences In Black Literary Circles That Are As Total And As Destructive As Any Imposed By Racism.

There Is A Timbre Of Voice That Comes From Not Being Heard And Knowing / You Are Not Being Heard / Noticed Only By Others / Not Heard For The Same Reason.

Some Women Wait For Themselves Around The Next Corner And Call The Empty Spot Peace But The Opposite Of Living Is Only Not Living And The Stars Do Not Care.