NEW NOTES ON LESBIANISM

"Black lesbians" sounds formidable and intimidating. Did not Bell Hooks (Ain't I a Woman, South End Press, 1981) avoid the issue of black lesbianism in the context of her feminist arguments for reasons she has never been able to explain that we (lesbians) know? "Black lesbians" --it is stark and startling. Did not Alice Walker (Black Scholar, Fall, 1981), an avowed non-lesbian, state that she would prefer, among others, the term "womanist" to the name "lesbian." "Black lesbians"--sounds like a Thelonious Monk tune. Lately, even I have been plying myself with such questions regarding my lesbianism: Why do I call myself a lesbian? Why do I elevate who I sleep with to politics? Why do I not pursue a more revolutionary politic--a polymorphous perverse vision of the world and of liv- ing. "Come out of the shoe box of les- bianism." "Do not be so cushioned in the narrow politics of sexual preference. "Are labels really necessary?" have been reverberating inside me regularly lately.

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Black women like pretty names. Re- member the names of Black girls in our lives growing up? Blossom. Queen Esther. Countess Peace. Floresta. Carleasa. "Black lesbians" is certainly different sounding. What black person or black lesbian in Harlem, on Chicago's South Side, Atlanta, Newark, Brooklyn, L.A. can relate to Sappho or the Isle of Lesbos, where white women were said to have mi- grated to cavort and become amazons. I wonder if they held black lesbians slaves? Lesbos, as Alice Walker sug- gests in her Black Scholar review of Gifts of Power: The Writings of Reb- ecca Jackson (1795-1871), Black Vis- ionary (edited by Jean M. Humez), was not the origin of lesbians. Lesbians like black folk, came into existence in what is now known as the Kongo, where language began, (thus, black lesbians' facility for talk, storytelling, and advice giving). So, perhaps, for black

women to call ourselves lesbians is an- achronistic, as black women have ob- viously been lesbians longer than all women, according to Walker. Is "woman- ist" any more viable though? It is not

the name that the prevailing culture de- spises but rather the act. . . of les- bianism, womanism; the interdependence of women and women, the fucking, the eat- ing, the smells, the juices, the vaginas that our enemies despise. If black women called ourselves something more neutral like "Black Azaleas," would other black women be more willing to identify with the politics of woman-bonding? If we were to call ourselves "black azaleas"

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by

Cheryl Clarke

instead of "black lesbians" would black women be more willing to identify their woman-bonding as political? Would the black community be any more willing to accept our definition, our naming? "Black azaleas"--sounds like a less fore- boding Monk tune. "Black Azaleas.

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Black feminist critic Deborah McDowell (Black American Literature Forum, Winter, 1980, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 153) takes issue with "Towards a Black Feminism Criticism" (Conditions Two, 1977, p. 54+), written by Black lesbian femin- ist Barbara Smith, for its lack of "pre- cision and detail: Mc Dowell demands that Smith and others like Smith who write from a--GASP!!!-lesbian perspective, pin our aesthetic to the page or folk will get confused. Not only may Sula, as Smith suggests, be interpreted as--GASP!!!-- lesbian novel, we might also be able, based upon Smith's criteria, to inter- pret Cane from a lesbian perspective, i.e., that some writers who are not les- bians might be interpreted as advancing a lesbian aesthetic or ideology inad- vertently.

The term "lesbian" has been deni- grated, degraded, and made synonymous with disease. And feminists (lesbians) have rescued and reclaimed it as black folk have rescued and reclaimed "black." And "lesbian" can mean "nigga" (June Jordan, Civil Wars, Beacon Press, 1981, 0.12), especially if it's black lesbians doin it, espec- ially if "nigga" means field hand, crazy nigger, outsider, rebel, trick- ster, Ananci, or guerilla. But if "nigga" means "unconscious, continuing self-hatred," as June Jordan proffers in her 1976 Ms. article, A Declaration of Independence I Would Just As Soon Not Have," reprinted in Civil Wars, lesbian is not the equivalent of it. It is hard to believe that June Jordan has not edited out or recanted that whole passage in which she denigrates lesbians; even for 1976 the attitude was reactionary! Maybe June Jordan should have used "bulldagger" in the analogy if she wanted to evoke the negative of lesbian--at least the terms "nigga" and "bulldagger" are equivalent. And if she still really believes that "lech- erous, exploitative, shallow, acting-out, and pathological behavior" is synonymous with lesbian, then maybe June Jordan ought to find out more about lesbians. Get some balance, sister.

Who one sleeps with is important. It just is. Sexuality is not neutral, Just personal, or a private matter.

Continued on pg. 7