Audre Lorde - Man Child

Hello, everyone.

I am doing the presentation for a reading um Man Child by Audrey Lord.

Uh I personally um have found her to be incredibly inspiring,

especially through her work with the cancer journals.

Um So that's why I picked her

um and hadn't really spent time with this particular reading. Um

So, but I really appreciate that.

Uh she kind of helped me find myself to be less lonely and use my voice for advocacy

and providing oncology care.

So,

um my son is 16 and my daughter is 13

and although my life doesn't mirror that of Audrey Lord,

um

I think me learning from her and understanding the complexities

of parenthood from her point of view is critical to

my personal and professional development.

So just a reminder that um this uh was first published in conditions four in 1979.

Um The magazine at that time

for women writing uh by lesbians and then Manchild was reprinted

in her sister Outsider, which

many of us have read

uh excerpts from or the whole thing. So,

um and then also too that um

work was pretty

um adamant that she wasn't a, a theorist.

Um and that this essay was not how to, you know, solution driven

type of thing. It was really exploring her experience

and I think she said it best when she said this is the way it was, is with me and Jonathan

and I leave the theory to another time in person.

So something that um I thought was really cool.

Um The Alice Austin House in Staten Island

um had a really neat exhibit a couple of years ago where a couple close friends and um

the Children, uh Elizabeth and Jonathan grown adults now

um uh approved for this um never seen before family um album

be displayed along with other things about um

Audrey Lord's life.

Uh So just kind of a reminder that when she was writing this uh man child,

she was in Staten Island uh raising her Children that she had had

with her ex-husband, uh Edwin Rollins who is a, a white gay man.

Um And then uh

you know, her Children,

she started writing this and then by the time she finished it, um

they were 15 and 14.

Um This is my other favorite photo I liked from that photo album.

It shows um Jonathan graduating from Vassar College and

I just love how this um is such a supportive

um There's women just in this picture and the mother is in the bottom left and

I think it just goes to show what she talked about

providing him

with the power of female and

understanding that she was going to have to

um help him understand the world he was going to enter as a black

man.

So the themes to me, child are um

uh I think ones that you will all readily agree with slash recognize. Um

There's so much from

um

you know, it's not many pages

but gender masculinity.

Uh When you really think about her own, recognizing herself,

household with her and Francis and Elizabeth just again, that, that power of,

of female

um along with her critique of the style expectations of masculinity,

um she talked about, you know, what does it mean to man up, you know, the toxicity of,

of the playground behavior um

and just her desire to help him have an understanding of what masculinity is.

And then when you um look at her stories about, you know,

mothering and motherhood just um so that anger

that she had toward that toxic masculinity and,

and kind of having to stop herself and think about that

because of course, she's wanting to protect her son

from those um moments. But

um she knows it's the world he's heightened into.

Um I think that when we're reading this,

uh for sure we can think about she was writing this as

the light was getting

lit up for New Jim Crow.

You know, when you think about 1979 1980

you have the

just ridiculous war on drugs and the mass incar

incarceration

of black men, um,

just,

you know, like a huge,

uh, wave. And so, um,

it's interesting to

think about

what she's writing about for that, um, vulnerability and,

um, thinking about her son

and

that fear and vulnerability, I think

she was really good about recognizing

that sh, um, you know, her, her anger and fear and then how she had the friend say,

you know,

did you ever tell him about your stories growing up to really show you're vulnerable

that you're, you know, he's not letting you down.

Um

And then I think

um

in the like the bigger picture moving forward in community engagement

and helping um ways to help um identify um uh your identity and your empowerment.

So I wanted to just kind of pull out some of the quotes that I think are really,

really powerful and get at the heart of some of those themes.

Um The first one really her expressing that, you know,

in the household that he was in, he, he certainly

was not going to have um

a measure, right? As Elizabeth did,

had a measure of rebellion or, or how to outline a dream or

um

and how that comes with

a lot of responsibility,

power. And I like the vulnerability that she mentioned again

um

to really have those conversations

about feeling your feelings and it's OK and you don't have to

um

subscribe to what was the man up or um the other types of toxic, toxic masculinity.

Um I certainly think that the second quote is one of the most powerful in the entire um

essay

because I think it just really is so out there

right in front of your face that this is systemic

racism and oppression and,

and, you know, do not dare um be destroyed, do not let the corruptions of power

define you.

Um And I know, you know, as we're reading this essay, that's where that in that fear.

Um

And the duality of her trying to mother and also being very angry and rightfully so,

um and trying to make sure um

that he has that uh identity

that it's not to despise women, it's not to fall into toxic masculinity patterns.

So

for me personally, I think that's,

I've reread that and reread to remind myself,

I think it's one of the most powerful quotes.

And then of course,

um how she has defined herself, you know, black lesbian

mother, uh poet, warrior. Um

What's interesting is when I first came to

know her and I thought about just cancer journals.

People use the word warrior, a Latin cancer.

And then, um it's not for, you know,

not knowing that uh she had other reasons or definitions behind warriors.

But when you see it

just that plainly put for survival, they, they must be raised as warriors.

So again, you know, that

going back and forth as the mother and having a lot of anger and

knowing what he's going to have to do to fight for his

uh rights as he, you know, his, his def definition of who he is, his self identity.

Um That's a pretty important um

and powerful statement

and then I think just kind of

moving forward when you wanna use

again. She's not, she does it.

She's not a theorist, she's a storytelling and this is her,

her story and Jonathan's story

that he permitted her to tell.

Um

that moving forward, you know, this is what her, her goal is, is that we're not,

um

you know, using these kind of toxic uh relationship

um to

limit ourselves. And

um

so I was trying to think about

maybe some programs and stuff that, that we did in our area. So,

um

I'll talk about that in a second. But uh

I, I wanted to make sure we saw a picture of the two of them together

um because she mentions in the essay too,

uh you know, a

lesbian couple, an interracial lesbian couple, her being a black lesbian,

raising a black male.

Um

I think that we don't wanna forget Frances Clayton in this.

Um because she certainly writes about the conversations and the

family meetings of things to just constantly be negotiating.

Um

what, what this all meant

in the society they were living in and her hope for the future and

um and so forth.

So when we kind of think about um

someone who's studying something the same way or thinking about the same thing.

Um The approach it from a different angle. Um I think

NC Tr

uh fits that bill.

Um

You know,

as we've said that Audre Audrey Lord wants to be viewed

in that intersectionality way. These are the things that she is and I love that.

She says I am indivisible. Um You know, the activism

that she,

I mean, that's certainly

I have a lot of legacies. It's certainly

um one of her main legacies is that her words were so powerful

and um

in that activist way. And so

she's spent a lot of time talking about being in touch with your feelings,

using your feelings, knowing,

you know, and that truest direction comes from inside.

Whereas joo,

a white feminist um sociologist and psych

psychoanalyst, she never defined herself as

at

least I didn't find anywhere heterosexual or, or straight.

She had been married, she got separated um from a man.

Um But as

um Audrey Lord said it would be presumptuous to know or say what her son's um

uh sexuality is then I'm not gonna say that for Nancy.

Um But she certainly is coming from things that an academic analyst,

analyst analysis, excuse me, perspective um to

um be discussing, you know, gender roles and sexual division of labor. So

both providing

groundbreaking breaking things just a

very different way of looking at motherhood.

And um

I feel like I said, what I thought was a really powerful quote,

but I certainly think this one is too.

Um, because it,

it's for all of us to consider if we are, um, you know,

moms or stepmoms or whatever we are uh grandmothers.

Um And so

I would not even pretend to imagine

how Audrey wanted to see this happen in a community engagement and setting and how

to develop um identity and empowerment.

But

the best I have right now is seeing something like

this applied is in our school system um is the um

uh it's a title one school system where

um

the majority

uh of students um

is, is black. And then

uh the next category is white and then some Hispanic and Asian.

And so they've done a lot to try to just consistently engage families.

They go into every single neighborhood with this fun thing called the super cat bus

that might have a school nurse on it might have the librarian on it.

They just have a lot of different

ways to

um

just constantly engage with the families.

And then the mentorship programs that they start early on with

um leaders of the community to come in and have breakfast

or um also, I think the Daily Dads is a phenomenal idea to really engage

um

engage African American males for one for sure.

But just um some of the some of the dads

uh to come in and work and they'll be there all day.

That was the cool thing about the Daily Dads. It wasn't just stopping in for an hour.

They were there all day,

uh, and then they do some other cool things to try to just build up self esteem. Um,

in, in the elementary, the two elementary schools, um,

bow ties are a really big thing here in, um, our African American men,

um,

uh, community.

Uh,

the two gentlemen that are kind of,

I guess you could say the grandfathers and uncles of the community,

you can always find them in bow tie.

And so they kind of wanted to try to connect that and, um, have that mentorship and,

and

when the child had done something like, hey, you know,

you're not part of the bow tie club

and then also getting marked, uh, not marked but picked to do tea with Principal and,

you know, making the front office a place that you wanna go and not.

Oh, gosh, I'm in trouble or there's something wrong.

And then the last thing just some active

they do career day with, with the fifth graders, the ninth graders and 11th graders,

I believe

because I've done, um, guest speaking with Career Day

and it's bringing, you know, every part of the community in. So it's,

um, a lot of interaction with police and fire and,

um, you know, local business owners and, um, the hospital as well.

And then the, umw James Farmer

Multicultural Center, they have um their farmer fellows

that come into school and do a lot of peer

um uh

counseling and things.

So,

these are the two discussion questions I came up for the group to

look at in respects to the essay um from the man child.

And um hopefully we can have some good discussion

and I'll see you soon.

Audre Lorde - Man Child

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