The Brown Menace: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday Video #3
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0:04 - 0:06Hello loved ones.
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0:06 - 0:09This is sister doctor Alexis Pauline Gumbs,
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0:09 - 0:11founder of the School of Our Lorde,
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0:11 - 0:15and this is week 3 of our 21 week
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0:15 - 0:17Resurrection Sunday series
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0:17 - 0:26in honour of the persistent, unstoppable, survival
of the spirit of black lesbian poet warrior mother -
0:26 - 0:28Audre Lorde.
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0:28 - 0:30So this week, the poem that we're going to look at
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0:30 - 0:38is called The Brown Menace, or,
Poem To The Survival of Roaches, -
0:38 - 0:45which was published in Audre Lorde's collections,
New York City Headshop and Museum in 1974. -
0:45 - 0:51And this poem is amazing to me in many ways.
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0:51 - 0:55For me, it's one of the places where
we see Audre Lorde talking about -
0:55 - 0:59survival on terms that go beyond
the human species. -
0:59 - 1:03And...oh I have so much to say about this poem...
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1:03 - 1:06but... why don't you check it out for yourself?
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1:07 - 1:10"The Brown Menace,
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1:10 - 1:14or Poem To The Survival of Roaches.
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1:17 - 1:18Call me
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1:18 - 1:20your deepest urge
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1:20 - 1:23toward survival
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1:23 - 1:24call me
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1:24 - 1:26and my brothers and sisters
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1:26 - 1:29in the sharp smell of your refusal
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1:29 - 1:30call me
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1:30 - 1:33roach and presumptuous
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1:33 - 1:35nightmare on your white pillow
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1:35 - 1:37your itch to destroy
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1:37 - 1:39the indestructible
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1:39 - 1:42part of yourself.
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1:42 - 1:45Call me your own determination
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1:45 - 1:49in the most detestable shape
you can become -
1:49 - 1:51friend of your image
within me -
1:51 - 1:54I am you
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1:54 - 1:57in your most deeply cherished nightmare
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1:57 - 1:59scuttling through the painted cracks
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1:59 - 2:01you create to admit me
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2:01 - 2:03into your kitchens
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2:03 - 2:05into your fearful midnights
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2:05 - 2:08into your values at noon
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2:08 - 2:11into your most secret places
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2:11 - 2:12with hate
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2:12 - 2:15you learn to honor me
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2:15 - 2:17by imitation
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2:17 - 2:18as I alter -
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2:18 - 2:21through your greedy preoccupations
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2:21 - 2:24through your kitchen wars
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2:24 - 2:26and your poisonous refusal -
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2:26 - 2:28to survive.
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2:28 - 2:31To survive.
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2:31 - 2:32Survive."
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2:32 - 2:36So this poem is incredible, confrontational,
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2:36 - 2:40really takes on white supremacy's project
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2:40 - 2:46to exterminate people of colour, very specifically,
"The Brown Menace". -
2:46 - 2:50So right now in our contemporary society,
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2:50 - 2:52what immigration policy looks like,
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2:52 - 2:59what the war on drugs,
i.e. the war on the poor, looks like, -
2:59 - 3:02is the same project of extermination,
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3:02 - 3:06and we can see it in, um, 1978,
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3:06 - 3:10Michel Foucault would talk about it in terms of
what's now called "biopolitics", -
3:10 - 3:15I wanna remind you all this poem came out in 1974,
before he coined that term. -
3:15 - 3:21And, this is an incredibly confrontational way
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3:21 - 3:29to say that when you seek to
marginalize a portion of your own species, -
3:29 - 3:33you seek to destroy the
indestructible part of yourself; -
3:33 - 3:36you seek to not survive.
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3:36 - 3:38And at the same time,
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3:38 - 3:44this poem is amazing because it does
this deeply interpersonal work -
3:44 - 3:52of how that which we want to destroy
when we see it in other people -
3:52 - 3:56is really something we're working through
in ourselves. -
3:56 - 4:00By using the figure of the roach in this case,
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4:00 - 4:04Audre Lorde brings out that visceral feeling.
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4:04 - 4:07The roach being the "most detestable shape",
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4:07 - 4:14that most hated yet most resilient creature
that we think of or know about on this planet. -
4:14 - 4:21That species that will outlive us, no matter what
we do to ourselves on this planet. -
4:21 - 4:24And this poem itself has survived.
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4:24 - 4:28I see legacies of it in the performances
of La Chica Boom, -
4:28 - 4:31who does Juan Cucaracha shows,
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4:31 - 4:36talking about what does it mean to take on
that status of the most hated creature. -
4:36 - 4:41Cherrie Moraga shouted out this poem
at this event in Oakland several years back, -
4:41 - 4:44and she talked about what it means to say
"call me roach", -
4:44 - 4:48really to take on in identification and solidarity,
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4:48 - 4:52that figure that is the most feared
by society. -
4:52 - 4:55So I love this poem for all of that.
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4:55 - 5:02And the assignment, the challenge for you,
should you choose to accept it, -
5:02 - 5:08is to think about that person
who gives you that feeling. -
5:08 - 5:11A person who you are disgusted with.
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5:11 - 5:15It may be a person that you know
in your community or your life; -
5:15 - 5:17it may be a political figure.
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5:17 - 5:19...For a long time it was Clarence Thomas.
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5:19 - 5:25And think about what is the lesson
for your evolution, -
5:25 - 5:30that is tied to that feeling you have
for that other person; -
5:30 - 5:33that other, other other, person,
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5:33 - 5:34who you would want to say is nothing like you,
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5:34 - 5:41but actually may - in your ability to see them -
hold the key to an indestructible part of yourself -
5:41 - 5:46an evolution that you can demand from yourself
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5:46 - 5:49at this moment because you can see them.
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5:49 - 5:52That's your assignment.
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5:52 - 5:57And, I want to read one of the poems...
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5:57 - 6:01I worked with this poem 26 different times
for all the letters of the alphabet today, -
6:01 - 6:05and I wanted to dedicate to us,
this Poem For The Letter S. -
6:05 - 6:11"S" is for Sunday and survival,
and here it is: -
6:11 - 6:16The Poem For The Letter S is
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6:16 - 6:17survival
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6:17 - 6:19survival
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6:20 - 6:26sisters sharp smell shape scuttling secret
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6:26 - 6:27survive
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6:27 - 6:28survive
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6:29 - 6:30survive.
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6:31 - 6:37So that is this week's Resurrection Sunday
ritual for us. -
6:37 - 6:42If you want to get in touch with me
and find one of your alphabetized poems -
6:42 - 6:48to aid you, like a vitamin, as you seek to look at
that indestructible part of yourself, -
6:48 - 6:49that you don't want to look at,
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6:49 - 6:53but that you're seeing in other people [ LAUGHS ]
who disgust you, -
6:53 - 6:54please hit me up,
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6:54 - 6:57you can check out the School of Our Lorde webpage
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6:57 - 6:59to find our how you can get involved.
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6:59 - 7:02And have such an amazing week!
- Title:
- The Brown Menace: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday Video #3
- Description:
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Launched on Nov. 17th 2013 on the 21st anniversary of Audre Lorde’s transition from an embodied warrior healer to an ancestral force, this is a weekly series of videos documenting and sharing my process of clarifying survival through a re-immersion in the words of Audre Lorde.
This week's poem is The Brown Menace or Poem to the Survival of Roaches from Lorde's 1974 collection New York Head Shop and Museum. Cherrie Moraga referenced this as one of her favorite poems by Audre Lorde at the Sister Comrade event in Oakland some years back and I see it as one of her most confrontational and brave poems ever! The assignment for this week (in addition to celebrating the survival of those of us who face extermination) is to think about a person who DISGUSTS you. It could be a person that you know in your community or it could be a political figure (mine was Clarence Thomas for a long time) and look for the lesson, "the indestructible part of yourself" that you see in that person or in your reaction to them. How do we become as resilient as roaches? We evolve in the face of what we don't want to see about ourselves.
Every week as part of my practice of resurrecting Audre Lorde in my life and in our communities I will be making an alphabetical oracle from the weekly survival poem which will consist of up to 26 new poems based on the sacred source text. If you would like to receive a custom poem as a blessing for your journey you can with a donation of your choice to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind’s School of Our Lorde! www.summerofourlorde.wordpress.com
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Captions courtesy of the Radical Access Mapping Project, Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/
================ - Video Language:
- English
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for The Brown Menace: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday Video #3 | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for The Brown Menace: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday Video #3 |