(Pictured from left to right: Monica Prince, Christiana Paradis, Hasanthika Sirisena, Apryl Williams, and Michael Thomas. Picture provided by Apyrl Williams)
By Makenna Hall, News Editor
At a panel held on Feb. 21 in Issacs Auditorium, Susquehanna professors discussed how intersectionality, agency, and activism as discussed in the works of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde can be applicable to members of the Susquehanna community.
Each professor shared their own interpretations of Baldwin’s and Lorde’s works, speaking on topics like anger, identity, responsibility to community and enacting agency.
The panel consisted of Sociology Professor Apryl Williams, English and Creative Writing Professor Hasanthika Sirisena, Women’s Studies Professor Christiana Paradis, Philosophy Professor Michael Thomas and was moderated by English and Creative Writing Professor Monica Prince.
The title of the panel “Dismantling the Master’s House: Intersectionality, Agency, and Activism in the Works of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde” derives from one of Lorde’s essays “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.”
Williams describes the essay as “a call to action to leave behind our old ways of thinking about oppressions as competing discourses of the need for liberation,” meaning that individuals cannot even begin dismantling the master’s house while still rejecting others’ differences.
While Lorde never explicitly uses the word intersectionality, Williams notes that Lorde’s life and works are both explicative of the concept.
“As a black, lesbian woman, much of [Lorde’s] writing deals with the marginalization she felt within the black community, especially the black feminist community,” Williams said. “In one piece she writes that black women whispered behind her back that black lesbians are weird and may in fact bring about the downfall of the entire race.”
Williams explained how Lorde then wondered how individuals could organize around their differences. Lorde found that there is a better chance of finding liberation when individuals could form a community around their differences and use those differences as strengths.
Williams discussed the imagery of the master’s house, and how the image of slavery is intentional. Lorde specifically brings attention to the house because, as William states, that is the source of his power. So to dismantle the house would be to strip him of power.
“Lorde frames our apathy and self-centeredness on our oppression as a major obstacle to freedom,” Williams said. “Thus, we must work together in our perspective and the pursuit toward liberation. It must be intersectional.”
Sirisena discussed the ways that anger can be ugly, uncomfortable, oppressive or a burden for certain individuals, and how it can be used to dismantle the master’s house.
She notes that the aesthetics of anger look different for different people. For white men, their anger is seen as righteous, while angry women are seen as shrewd and ugly.
Sirisena also discussed how the image of the angry black man has been used to oppress them and to justify violence and murder.
However anger materializes in different people, Sirisena still encourages individuals to use it to their own advantage.
“Use the tools available to you to reframe and reposition all those of anger that the powers that be have deemed of you… Use them to market your ideas. Celebrate them,” she said.
For Audre and Baldwin, anger was necessary for them to combat racism, according to Sirisena.
“The savvy ways in which [Baldwin and Lorde] used a system that was designed to…oppress them defined a platform from which to be heard,” she stated
“What other response other than anger makes any sense when facing systematic and systemic racism?” Sirisena said.
Paradis shared similar ideas, mainly derived from Lorde’s views on silence; she quotes Lorde saying, “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”
After having read Lorde’s passages as a student, Paradis felt an uncontrollable force telling her to speak her truth, even if it made her uncomfortable.
She continued explaining how it is everyone’s duty to learn and continue to ask questions.
The idea of self-educating was also present in Williams’ interpretation of the master’s house. She stated that for an individual to expect their friends, peers and colleagues to educate them on issues of oppression is inherently racist and patriarchal.
Thomas spoke more about activism on a micro-level: how individuals can better understand their own place and position to define their role.
“To know one’s place is to be conscious of how your social position defines who you are and your possibilities,” Thomas said. “You’re standing and planning your position according to the set of rules that have been defined for you in the past.”
Thomas described Baldwin’s realization of understanding his role rather than his place. Once Baldwin understood his place, according to Thomas, he could not hate America because he had been using the things he disliked about the country to avoid the responsibility he had to make any changes.
“To have a role is to be an active participant in the involvement of your destiny. It means taking responsibility for who you are…Agency requires honesty and self-reflection but it can’t be done alone,” Thomas stated.
Thomas quoted Baldwin saying, “One can only face in others what one can face in themselves.”
Thomas then posed a question asking what role individuals have towards the system of reality of the United States and at Susquehanna.
“To answer this question, we’ve got to think long and deep about who we are, what this place is and how our presence here means we’re a part of it. It’s history is our history,” Thomas said.
He noted that it is important for individuals to understand their environment as well as to not deceive themselves about “the horrors of the past relative to the progress of the present.”
“We can, on one hand, have these conversations about what happened in 1971, but we also have to remember that some of us are still upset about things that happened as recently as December,” Thomas concluded.
