“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences” -Audre Lorde https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/audre_lorde

                    Audre Lorde use of poetry for social and racial reform

Audre Lorde was an activist who fought for change in many weak areas within our society. She prided herself in the fight against social and racial discrimination within the society. Lorde would express the frustrations she had towards the society by creating poems in a way to bring awareness and express the concerns of the injustices that people of color, women and people with different sexual orientations face daily. Changing the way, we view and react to many situations in the society is what Lorde tries to focus on. Standing up against the norm is seen as bizarre but people like Audre Lorde made sure they were able to make sure that everyone understood the injustices and the importance to fight for our rights.

 Being from New York City and “self-described as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” According to Poetry Foundation she wrote poems as a way of “confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia”. A poem called “Power” written by Lorde helped her “speak the truth as [she] see’s it and to share not just [her] triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain”. This poem made sure to address the injustice of police brutality when they shot a 10-year-old boy named Clifford Glover. According to PSC Cuny“Police claimed young Glover pointed a pistol at them as he ran away, and hundreds of cops searched for this mystery gun – but they found [anything]” (Washington 2015). This case of Clifford Glover affected Lorde giving her mixed emotions. She said that it “felt like a fury rose up in me” this had made her feel sick and she said “I felt as if I would drive this car into a wall, into the next person I saw. So, I pulled over. I took out my journal just to air some of my fury, to get it out of my fingertips” (Poetry Foundation 2019).

            The poem “Power” is as if Lorde is in a nightmare since the face of the child that was killed is at “the edge of my sleep”. It is as if she can recall how the “blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders” is spread out everywhere “for miles”. Lorde is trying to grasp and understand the reasoning behind this unjust killing as she says, “my mouth splits into dry lips without loyalty or reason”. Lorde wanted to understand why that police officer would do such thing and had caused the young boys “blood… sink into the whiteness of the desert”; This place where there’s no life and a type of emptiness. In this emptiness “lost without imagery or magic” is like if she cannot see through the emptiness in “the desert” or through his soul. Staying strong and “trying to make power out of hatred and destruction” is trying to stay positive and make something good out of a bad situation. The only feeling that comes out of that is hatred towards the brutality that is being done by the police and the system imposed by higher officials. “trying to heal my dying son with kisses” is a way of show him love even though he is no longer alive and while time is still processing “the sun will bleach his bones quicker”. 

            This poem shows the realness of racism especially when the “policemen who shot down ten-year-old in queens stood over the boy” and said “die you little motherfucker” while being recorded. He was then able to claim at trial that he “didn’t notice the size nor nothing else only the color” of the little boy. He was also recorded saying this in court as well.  This way of think is an abuse to “Power” these police used his power over the little boy to shoot him because of his color. “That 37-year-old white man with 13 years of police forcing was set free… By eleven white men who said they were satisfied”. This is an example of how Lorde wanted to show the corruption within our justice system. A white male decides to kill a black child and he is able to walk away with no jail time because a predominantly white system said it was okay. The racism and the unjust systems are highlighted in the overall poem. The “Power” Lorde describes is the power of the people, of the system and the way the black community feels powerless during these times. Writing these types of poems informs the people of the society that there’s plenty of issues that need to be addressed especially if they believe that it was okay and lawful for the killing of a 10-year-old.

“Afterimages” was another one of Audre Lorde’s poems that speaks about the killing of young black males. In this poem she’s Emmett till as a way to present the racism and the racial motive of these white men that killed Till. “While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier”(History 2019). They made Emmett “carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes”. After following their directions “The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river” (History 2019). 

The killing of Emmett Till occurred because Emmett told his friends that he had a white girlfriend back home and they didn’t believe him because in 1955 the south still had Jim Crow laws were people of color and the whites were separated. This became a shock for all of them because they had never seen an interracial couple so they “dared Emmett to ask the white woman sitting behind the store counter for a date”. On his way out of the store he told the white women “bye, baby”.   There were no witnesses in the store, but Carolyn Bryant—the woman behind the counter—later claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out” (History 2019). 

The men that killed Emmett “were originally prosecuted on murder charges, but in a closely watched case, an all-white jury found them not guilty”. Similar to Clifford Glover the justice system was predominantly white making it difficult to gain justice. “The men later confessed to a journalist that they did, in fact, kill Till, because he refused to stay in his “place” as a black man in the South. They did not express regret” (Domonoske 2018) another way of saying “a black boy hacked into a murderous lesson” was the best way to show him to stay in his place. (Poetry Foundation 2019). 

In “Afterimages” Lorde speaks on the images she saw of Emmett Till’s body that was taken during his open casket funeral. She can’t stop thinking about this murder “However the image enters its force remains within my eyes”. She says this as a way of coming to the realization that after seeing images of Emmett Till she won’t be able to ever unsee it. She continues to think about “the fused images [that lie] beneath [her] pain.” These “fused images” emerge from Lorde’s own nightmare…” (Kolin 2019). Till’s death was a start for “the burgeoning civil rights movement in the late ’50s. And the lack of any consequence for Till’s killers has troubled and frustrated many people, in Mississippi and beyond”. Lots of protest and news anchors had picked up the story which made it difficult for Lorde to unsee. “At first, she tried to escape from the tragedy; “my eyes averted/from” Till’s photos in “newspapers, protest posters magazines”” But the ghost of “this black child’s mutilated body” haunted her” (Kolin 2019). In the poem Lorde is very haunted by these images that’s she refers to “nightmare rain”; she comes Emmett’s mother and starts to feel the pain while also “empowered to lament for all black mothers who have lost children” (Domonoske 2018). 

Audre in both of her poems “Power” and “Afterimages” addresses the fact that the judicial system is corrupt, and racism has a role. Emmett Till’s killers later admitted that they did it to “make an example” of him because while they were beating him, he told them “I’m as good as you are”. Camila Domonoske also reported that milam one of the men said: 

“As long as I live and can do anything about it, n*****s are gonna stay in their place. N*****s ain’t gonna vote where I live. If they did, they’d control the government. They ain’t gonna go to school with my kids. And when a n***** gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he’s tired o’ livin’. I’m likely to kill him.”

The racism within that statement show the extent Milam would go to remain segregated under Jim Crow laws and the power he holds within the society because is a white male. Under Jim Crow laws whites were control of all aspects in the government. They made sure people of color could not vote, eat in the same place or even ride the same buses. This is a power they held over the black community. Milan enforces the fact that he has this power and the judicial system is right behind him supporting.

            Racism is a major issue that Lorde fights against; In her keynote presentation for the National Women’s Studies Association she stated that racism is “The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance, manifest and implied”. She uses her writing to empower people to say something rather than staying in silence because it doesn’t teach anything. She then continues to provide examples of simple acts of racism that many don’t catch of don’t say anything to. One example was “How can we address the issues of racism? No women of Color attended.” Or, the other side of that statement, “We have no one in our department equipped to teach their work.”  In other words, racism is a Black women’s problem, a problem of women of Color, and only we can discuss it” (Blackpast 2012). Racisms presents itself in many different ways if it’s not directly towards a person it’s through actions. An example that Lorde gave that shows this was “I speak out of direct and particular anger at an academic conference, and a white woman says, “Tell me how you feel but don’t say it too harshly or I cannot hear you.” But is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change?” (Blackpast 2012). 

            Audre Lorde makes it her business to create poems and speak out in public area in order to make people aware that racism still goes on. She provided many examples of this in her poems Power, Afterimages and even in her Conference. She does this as a way to enlighten people and lead people to stand up for racial and social reform because a change is necessary. The racial discrimination and motives behind both Emmett Till and Clifford Glover killings are clearly seen and need to be used for change. In Lorde’s poems she has spoken out about racism which makes people understand that racism is disguised in many places and things with our society like in police brutality, during Jim Crow laws and the judicial system. 

Works Cited:

“Audre Lorde.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde.

BlackPast. “(1981) Audre Lorde, ‘The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism’ • BlackPast.” BlackPast, 13 May 2019, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1981-audre-lorde-uses-anger-women-responding-racism/.

Domonoske, Camila. “Justice Department Reopens Emmett Till Murder Investigation.” NPR, NPR, 12 July 2018, www.npr.org/2018/07/12/628425530/justice-department-re-opens-emmett-till-murder-investigation.

“Emmett Till Is Murdered.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till.

Lorde, Audre. “Afterimages by Audre Lorde.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42582/afterimages.

Lorde, Audre. “Power by Audre Lorde.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53918/power-56d233adafeb3

Washington, Paul. “From Clifford Glover to Eric Garner: Black and Brown Lives Matter.” PSC CUNY, 8 Oct. 2015, www.psc-cuny.org/Washington.