Not so much an absence of taste...

On Audre Lorde’s Legacy and the “Self” of Self-Care, Part 2 of 3

lowendtheory:

[Image: from the Black Community Survival Conference, DeFremery (locally known as Lil’ Bobby Hutton) Park, Oakland, CA, March 29, 1972. I first encountered this image via Alondra Nelson’s brilliant book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination.]

“If I were president, I would solve this so-called welfare crisis in a minute and go a long way toward liberating every woman. I’d just issue a proclamation that ‘women’s’ work is real work.”
- Johnnie Tillmon, “Welfare as a Women’s Issue.”

 ”The modern world hates to see black folks resting.”
- Lewis Gordon, “African American Philosophy, Race, and the Geography of Reason.”

Part One here.

This post is an experiment. It attempts to find a new route to the question of what it means to politicize Audre Lorde’s legacy.  Its search is partly in response to what I described in part 1 as the tendency in some cases to deify Lorde by extracting her from the political context in which she lived, or by reducing her to a set of pithy (if brilliant) quotations, or by invoking her as an unqualified paragon of black women’s resilience.  In attempting to route the conversation differently, my strategy is to try and glimpse Lorde through an archive that is not of her published writings but of a set of struggles and contexts that affirm dimensions of her humanity and her work that are too rarely emphasized—her struggles with health and wellness, her status as worker, her vulnerability to the very discourses that demand that she be seen as powerful.  Doing this means following a route that may, to some, seem rather circuitous.  I can only hope that by the end, those divergences will make some sense.

Read More

This seems really important

Today a 67 year old lady who used a wheel chair died after being thrown out of her apartment by her landlord. The landlords first attempt at eviction was prevented through a large demo, however a second attempt succeed, requiring 150 police officers to carry through.

Quick translation of the demo call out below (German in the link)

I HOPE EVERY FUCKING LANDLORD DIES, THIS ONE FIRST.

http://kottiundco.net/2013/04/12/wir-trauern-um-rosemarie-f/

 We are mourning Rosemarie F.

This evening, a 67 year old pensioner has died, following her forced eviction on Thursday . The elderly lady was left homeless by the eviction, and was being housed in a self organized warming shelter. Her eviction was prevented once, but the landlord pushed through another eviction. This second eviction was ordered by the court, despite the opinion of a doctor that it would severely effect her health. 150 police officers were required to carry out the eviction, all for a private landlord.

The landlord bought the building in 2012 and Rorsemary F. was given no account number that she could transfer her rent to. The husband of the landlord said that she could die or “go to the jungle” for all he cared. Rosemarie F. had, despite her severe health problems, managed to come to a demo at Kotti. Here she asked for support. The organization “Zwangsräumung Verhindern” has, since that time, struggled alongside her. However, the second eviction was not able to be prevented.

After her eviction from her apartment in Rickendorf she spent the night in a co-op which offered her solidarity. From there she moved to an emergency cold help center. The founder of the organization that ran the cold help center met with her just before her death on Thursday, and called for protests.

This evening at 18:00 the mourning march will begin.

We are saddened and furious.

We ask you to take part in the march this evening.

This death could have been prevented.

We demand to know why this eviction was pushed through despite the testimony of a doctor. Who is responsible for this?

Why are the interests of a landlord held above the lives of their renters?