bashoGWSS1

I think the most important point Lorde makes is that oppression comes in many flavors, not just patriarchy. There are so many ways for human beings to be somehow not exist as a 'plus five', (or limited) and Lorde brings to mind two ways these boundaries maintain the systems of oppression we encounter every day.. First, they cause oppressed groups to be pit against each other. They are blind to the fact that their struggles are really the same, or that they have anything in common with other groups of human beings that are limited by social stigmas or prejudge. An analogy would be a solider in Iraq. He or she has a lot more in common with the Iraqi civilians that resisted the invasion of their country, but identified these people as the enemy, rather than the politicians who decided on sending him or her to war, who the solider has very little in common with in economic and social terms. A second point that Lorde brings up is that by having some 'plus five' elements, say being white but also not being male, we do not see ourselves as the oppressors, or part of that system. By making this system a 'they' instead of an 'us', we can shift the blame to a nameless entity instead of of examining the guilt of our own actions. Lorde has been able to see this through her personal experiences as a black lesbian, giving her a unique and seldom heard point of view on gender and power. Lorde states that these differences shouldn't be ignored, as others have suggested, but embraced.