Week Five Blog
In society there are always oppressors and always those who are oppressed, unfortunately there are many different categories of where people fit into. In any society oppressors in every situation from racism to sexism all have the “belief in the inherent superiority over the inferior group and therefore, the oppressors feel they have the right to dominate�. Author Andre Lorde is ultimately oppressed. She does not have any power Lorde sees herself at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Why? Because Lorde is an African American female, who is a homosexual and in an interracial relationship. She is not only oppressed by white men, but by white women, and black men and women as well. According to Lorde “many people in society have a hard time recognizing differences and many of the oppressed are under some illusion that their oppressors are really protecting them�¬¬¬¬¬¬. Lord is constantly working against oppression, she views society as an unfortunate hierarchy, not only does she have to work in the limits of being a black women, she also has to work in the limits of being a lesbian in a relationship with someone who is not black. She is fighting against her black community, her female community, as well as the white community. Lorde was constantly being encourages to “out some one aspect of herself and present it as the meaningful whole eclipsing or denying the other parts of herself�. Those who are oppressed are forced to deny that part of them that is seen as inferior; in lorde’s case that was almost every part of her. In lordes lifetime power was based on hierarchy and she was on the bottom of the totem pole. What lorde wanted people to realize was how women look at oppression differently based on what women are more oppressed those others. White women work towards equal rights for women but do not look at black women’s oppression in society. Black women look at their oppression from the white male society but do not look at oppression of a black lesbian woman. According to lorde, to change the tension among women, women must be able to “identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across differences�. All women must come together to fight against hierarchy, because if they focus on differences between women they are not going to be able to look at the bigger picture.¬¬¬¬