Screening for 3/16: Marlon Riggs's "Black Is...Black Ain't"

This Tuesday, we will view Marlon Riggs's 1994 documentary Black Is...Black Ain't. In addition, we have the following presentation. Please note next Tuesday's presentation as well. 


Tuesday, 3/16
Faraji Johnson: Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure): "Definitions of Black Power"

Tuesday, 3/23
Catherine Kilpatrick: Barbara Jordan: "Who, Then, Will Speak to the Common Good?" (1976)



Below is a poem by black lesbian feminist poet and scholar Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Here is a link to more information on Lorde, her life, and her work: Voices From the Gap: Audre Lorde

Coal
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.

Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
seeking like gypsies over my tongue
to explode through my lips
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me


Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
                                               --Audre Lorde