In 1979 in the (still) segregated black neighborhoods of Boston, 12 black women were killed over a period of 4 months. The police and the mainstream media ignored these killings, claiming that the victims were most likely prostitutes and therefore deserved what they got. The members of a black lesbian feminist socialist organization called the Combahee River Collective responded to this blatant disregard for the lives of black women and sex workers by organizing publications, marches, vigils, self-defense classes, public art and a citywide coalition to respond to violence against all women.
Barbara Smith, one of the members of the Combahee River Collective and a comrade of Audre Lorde who would eventually found Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, sent Lorde letters and clippings about the murders and the struggle of black feminists in the Boston area to respond. At the same time black women were showing up dead in black communities in New York City (where Lorde lived) and in Detroit and other cities. In response to the widespread violence against black women within black communities Audre Lorde wrote a Need: A Chorale for Black Women’s Voices. Years later Lorde’s piece continues to be performed by collectives of black women and transgendered people seeking creative ways to respond to gendered violence. Lorde’s poetic tactics continue to help oppressed communities to move from silence to action and power in the face of internalized racism and violence.
To read Need along with an updated introduction Audre Lorde wrote explaining her intentions for the piece click need.
At Bennett, the Africana Women’s Studies students were inspired by Need to take on contemporary instances of violence against not only black women but also women of color all over the world. In the spirit of the roomful of African American and Afro-Caribbean women who created a vision to raise the voices of all women of color through Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1981, the students in my class at Bennett felt charged to respond to violence against all women of color with their brave poetic work. I am proud of these students for becoming warriors for their own healing and freedom. They challenge betrayal within communities and across communities. They demand individual and collective victory.
Please be sure to have friends, family, quiet time and space on call while you read the brave and sometimes graphic work of the students. They remain true to Audre Lorde’s insistence that our silence will not save us.
The Dunbar Village Dehumanizations
I hope this poem will be used in my communities to show the pain and suffering that is transmitted when we hear about what happens to our sisters. I hope that this will never happen again, and people will realize that it is a big deal. That something has to be done about the violence against women. That a woman is a big deal, a woman is a person, if we can’t take care of her how can we take care of ourselves? These atrocities makes us tired of living, but scared of dying.
Info. -10 African-American males raped, sodomized, beat up and blinded a mother and her young son. They did this for three hours..while neighbors turned a deaf ear. They forced the mother to perform oral sex on her son, and poured cleaning solution into his young eyes..blinding him for life. Yet because three of these vicious men don’t get bail…the black leaders are calling them “victims”. Yet again race takes the center stage.
Poet
Brothers, I see your hatred
Woman
I felt your anger
Poet
Brothers, I see your hatred
Woman
Why….why..Oh GOD ..why?
Poet
Sisters, I see your pain
Your confusion, your anger
When 10 brothers walked in
Community
Walked in or invited
it’s not any of my business
Woman
GOD, why..why…why?
three hours..three hours
they beat my boy
noone came ..noone helped us
Poet
Brothers, I see your anger
Sisters, I feel your pain
why do we downplay
what our brothers do
is it because our sisters are inferior
is it because we must be strong together?
when our sister’s thighs were pried open
when her son’s eyes were peeled back
Community
it’s not any of my business
Woman
Noone came..noone helped us
Poet
when they rode her back and front
when they emptied the cleaning solution
into her son’s eyes
blinding him forever
three hours…three hours
Community
soo..a woman was raped..so what?
Woman
these brothers they call them
voiceless, vulnerable victims
because they get no bail
Poet
Brothers, I see your anger
Sisters, I feel your pain
Community
It ain’t none of my business
Woman
three hours I was helpless
they took me…
they took me..
they took me.
Poet
when they thrust her head
down to her little boys groin
down to his bloody battered form
they stared as she sucked
Community
We had things to do
She’ll be okay
she’s one of a million
Woman
voiceless, vulnerable victims
What am i
what am i?
Poet
Sisters, I don’t see your anger
Brothers, I don’t feel your pain
Anonymous-
This woman is Black
So her screams and words go unheard
This woman is Black
So her tears continue to flow
Like a never ending water fall
To never be wiped away but just dried upon her face
(Banita)
Something just kept telling me that they were all possessed
Demons, I tell you all four
There is no one to tell me to stop
Especially there fathers
I am their father
I watched as their starving faces just vanished before my eyes
Now they are all dead
(Unknown )
I lie in a bath tub curl into a ball
Scared with me and my son lying in water
Trying to recoup from everything that I let happen to my son
Not knowing if they will come back
They wanted to set us on fire
But they didn’t have the tools to
So will they come back?
(Robyn)
When will it be the time to care?
Black women are subjected to violence a lot.
But why is the media not covering them?
Are we not worthy of that respect?
We are the victims of rape, violence, etc.
If it was a white woman then they would have 24 hour coverage…
(All)
We accept that we are black women.
But we don’t accept how we are treated.
We continue to stay silenced.
We do so much to get attention
But we never receive it.
The men in our lives don’t even care
Or are not even there.
So who will care.
(Unknown)
How can I speak out against the violence
Against women if I’m too afraid to step outside.
How can I open my eyes knowing that my son can’t?
Why didn’t I fight back?
Only if I didn’t open the door
This would have never happened to the booth of us.
(All)
How will we speak out if we are too afraid to?
(Banita)
I was left to take care of 4 growing girls by myself!
One father is dead and the other might as well be dead
He does not even pay child support.
Maybe I just made a excuse to call them demons
Because in the end I am a single black female
Who cannot live with government money with 4 children.
They were going to die anyway
Because I could provide for them with what they need.
(Banita & Unknown)
We are women who are hurt by black men?
They leave us, hurt us, and disrespect our lives
We don’t matter to them
So why were we created.
Response to Need
by Taryn-Nichelle J. Dove
Yosuni: I looked, only me for a while, I wanted the MAN, your MAN, to have a MAN, but I am a girl, and I thought he’s probably got an American girl with blond hair and blue eyes, and hips and legs for days, and gorgeous, and beautiful, and not Japanese. Not like me with a girl’s body, oh how I want to be a woman, for HIM, for me, for just a moment, so he can look at me, and kiss me, and make love to me, whatever that feels like, just to be loved and wanted and desired and chased and loved and loved
Woman: Don’t look, don’t wonder, and don’t think about HIM, why do you capitalize ‘him’? Why do you give ‘him’ power? Why do you want to be a woman for ‘him’? Why would you change yourself for ‘him’? You don’t even know ‘him’ Don’t be loved, don’t be wanted, don’t be desired, don’t be chased, don’t make him go insane over you and don’t make him go insane over you and don’t…
Yosuni: I looked at him again today, stared more like it, just walked and stared and stared and walked some more trying to pretend that I was busy looking for something, or lost something, but still he didn’t look up or down or to the left or right, just into space, I’m so unnoticeable, but if I was older and prettier maybe he’d look up, what could make him look up?, that’s what I’ll try to figure out tomorrow and tomorrow.
Woman: look, leave, go home to mama and daddy, leave and be a young girl, leave and spend your time playing, the last years of your life, and leave and leave and…
Yosuni: Today I did the same thing as yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, and he looked up, and said that I most have lost something important because I’ve been in the same place at the same time for two days now, and I laughed and he said I had a pretty smile, and he wished all the girls in America had a smile as pretty as mine, he’s charming, I know he’s not being serious, me fourteen have a prettier smile than all the American girls?, I know he wasn’t being serious, but I liked it anyway, still anyway
Woman: NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO you don’t listen, listen to me, hear me, hear me, hear me, please leave, run, and never look back, never go where he is, never speak to him, and never look at him, and never think about him, and…
Yosuni: We went on a tour today, or I showed him around Okinawa, the fishermen and their boats, we didn’t go into town, too far, and I told him the country is better because you can breathe, and he laughed, he laughs at all my jokes, he says I am the funniest little girl he’s ever met, and I said I got mad because I’m not a little girl and he kept making fun of me saying I had no breasts like a woman and hips and probably had never even kissed a boy, and that wasn’t true, I have breasts, small but they are mine, and mama says they will grow bigger when I am older, and he said how much older, still making fun of me and still making fun of me
Woman: that sick bastard, that pervert, that monster, that man, that man that man, no he’s not a man, what man takes what isn’t his? What was pure, what was hers, was hers and never again, and never again, never again whole, never again complete, never again pure, and…
Yosuni: Today I took him to the sea, where the water and sun meet, like kissing, they touch, and go on forever and he started making fun of me again for saying kissing, what do you know about kissing, and I said some stuff, because I kissed a boy in my class on a dare, but he said have you ever kissed someone older than you, and I said all the boys older than me have girlfriends and they don’t think I’m pretty because I am so skinny, but he said you would fit right in because all the girls in America are skinny, and I like skinny, then he touched my legs and, then my thigh, and then tried to take my panties off, and down and off and down and off and BLOOD and hunger and BLOOD and hunger and
Woman: I am lost, she is lost, we are lost, and pretending to look for something that was stolen and lost, stolen and lost and stolen and stolen and stolen and I want it back and she wants it back and we can’t have it back, like where the water and sun meet and kiss and go on forever, and forever, and forever, and it just starts with a stare then a kiss and a stare and a kiss
While looking online, specifically CNN.com, there was a story whose headline read “U.S. Marine charged with rape.” The marine was charged with raping a 14-year-old in Tokyo (Okinawa), Japan earlier this year. This reminded me of the many incidents between Americans and residents of foreign countries. Immediately I was affected by this story. I know how it feels letting your guard down only to be betrayed anyway. I hope this incident will alert communities in protecting their young women from predators, especially in foreign countries. For women of color, our chastity is rarely ever protected leaving us vulnerable to society. It is because of this that many young girls are being raped, molested, and sexually abused today. All women should be concerned with the wellbeing of every other women, regardless of culture, ethnicity, speech or any other factor that may divide us.
Letters to Audre Lorde 
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