Blog Assignment Six
Audre Lorde shows us a whole new way of looking at oppression through her unique classification and background. Since she is a women of color, a feminist, and a lesbian all at the same time, she can give us a very different perspective that most people don't see on a regular basis. She is oppression from many different systems of power and came up with a consciousness that involves intersectionality. This is when a variety of different classifications and characteristics come together to form who you are and how you are looked upon and sometimes oppressed. Each of her classifications is an section of her and they all intersect and intertwine to make her who she is. This consciousness forms for Lorde because she is not only oppressed by males for being a female, whites for being black, but also other blacks, females , and heterosexuals for being homosexual. She feels forced to downplay parts of her depending on who she is with just to be accepted, which isn't right because she doesn't want to be classified as just a woman, just black, or just a lesbian. When she is with feminists she tries to downplay her race and sexuality, when she is around other blacks she downplays her sexuality, etc.
Anzaldua has some similar and some different perspectives and views. Her being a chicana lesbian, she also comes from a perspective that isn't always seen or heard. Instead of calling her consciousness an intersection like Lorde, she calls it borderlands consciousness, broken, or a hybrid. She is a mix of white and mexican and therefore feels like she can't be either so she is nothing. She has "severed" parts and feels like she needs to "juggle" between the classifications she is caught in between. This compels us to see how much of a struggle and how caught in the middle someone of two different races can feel.
Both Lorde and Anzaldua have many things alike with their lives and the way they see things. Both give us perspectives that aren't always considered, ones that stray from the "norm." Also, both show us just how much race, class, sexuality, gender, etc come together and form our place in society and the power in which we receive. Both women live a life where they can feel oppressed by multiple different factors. One small difference is that Lorde seems to feel at an intersection, where she has to choose one way over the other depending on the situation, whereas Anzaldua feels like she is at a crossroads or a border, and feels broken. Neither seem to want to have to choose one way or one characteristic for each situation, but neither feel exactly the same about this situation. Lastly, both seem to want to show us that there is more to oppression than what we see and that we need to see what they see in order to change things. We must internalize difference and learn to think of it as just difference and not a a negative or a dualism.