5

LESBIANISM IS A REALITY

a

No matter how a Woman lives out her lesbianism--in the closet, in the state legislature, in the bedroom--she has rebelled against becoming male-dependent female. Historically, this culture has come to identify lesbians as women, who, over time, engage in a range and variety of sexual- emotional relationships with women. Lesbianism is a recognition, an awakening, a reawakening of our passion for each other and for same (woman). This passion ultimately serves to reverse the heterosexual privilege of male culture.

must

If she

The women who embrace lesbianism as an ideological, political and philosophilcal means of liberation of all women from male and heterosexual domination also identify with the worldwide struggle of all women to end male supremacy. a woman calls herself a feminist, must be willing to commit herself to the liberation of all women, especially as it manifests itself in the family, the state, and on Madison Avenue. lesbian feminist struggles for liberation of all people and for the transformation of all sociopolitical structures, systems, and relationships that have been degraded and corrupted under centuries of male domination.

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As a member of the largest and second most oppressed group of people of color, a woman whose slave and ex-slave foresisters suffered some of the most brutal racist, male supremacist imperialism in Western history, the Black lesbian has also had to survive the psychic mutilation of heterosexual superiority. The lesbian experiences institutional racism--like every other Black person in America--and must suffer as well the homophobic sexism of the Black political community, some of whom seem to have forgotten so soon the pain of rejection, denial, and repression sanctioned by racist America. While most political Black lesbians do not give a damn if white America is negrophobic, it becomes deeply problematic when the contemporary Black political community rejects us because of our commitment to women and women's liberation. Many black male members of that community still seem not to understand the historic connection between the oppression of African peoples in North America and the universal oppression of women. I think one reason Black women are so homophobic is that they are both attracted and repulsed by lesbianism. They have to speak out against lesbianism because if they don't, they may have to deal with their Own deep feelings for women.

by Tania Abdulahad @ 1983

Another reason for homophobic attitudes among Black women is the sexual stereotyping used against all Black people generally, but especially against women in relation to homosexuality--the "Black bulldagger" immage. The way most Black women deal with lesbianism, so-called deviant sexuality, is to be just as rigid and closed about it as possible.

a

Black people can disregard any behavior they say is despicable by saying it doesn't belong to the Black community. Often lesbianism and male homosexuality is talked about as a white disease within the Black community. This attitude negates our lives and upsets me and many sisters and brothers who are lesbians and gay men.

Despite the fact that woman-bonding has a long and honorable history in the African and African-American communities, and despite the knowledge and accomplishment of many strong and creative women-identified Black women, heterosexual Black women often seek to ignore or discount the existence and work of Black lesbians. NOW part of the attitude has come from an understandable terror of Black male attack within the close confines of Black society, where punishment for Black women's self assertion is still to be accused of being a lesbian, and therefore unworthy of the attention or support of the scarce Black male.

a

Another part of this need to misname and ignore Black lesbians has come from very real fear that only women-identified Black women who are no longer dependent upon men for their self determination may well reorder Our whole concept of social relationships. Now this position can only hold up if you really believe that once homophobia and heterosexism end, then every Black woman will immediately choose to become a lesbian. It was not the Black lesbian who presumed to make such a devastating comment about the state of Black heterosexual relationships, nor will responsibility for it.

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Lastly, I would like to say it is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from ignoring and misnaming those differences.

(Continued on p. 6)