Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. But to fail to move out from there will only isolate us in our own oppression- will only insulate, rather than radicalize us.Updated and expanded edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism. The answer is: yes, I think first we do and we must do so thoroughly and deeply. Do we merely live hand to mouth? Do we merely struggle with the "ism" that's sitting on top of our heads?
When the going gets rough, will we abandon our so-called comrades in a flurry of racist/heterosexist/what-have-you panic? To whose camp, then, should the lesbian of color retreat? Her very presence violates the ranking and abstraction of oppression. Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place. The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression purely from a theoretical base. The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of the oppression. The danger lies in ranking the oppressions. “In this country, lesbianism is a poverty-as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color It's always there, embodied in someone we least expect to rub up against.” Similarly, in a white-dominated world, there is little getting around racism and our own internalization of it. I have sometimes felt "not man enough." For a lesbian trying to survive in a heterosexist society, there is no easy way around these emotions. I have sometimes felt "not woman enough" for her. I have sometimes hated my lover for loving me. And yet, the truth of the matter is that I have sometimes taken society's fear and hatred of lesbians to bed with me. We toss them aside as merely patriarchal notions. In 1979, we talk of "old gay" and "butch and femme" roles as if they were ancient history. I have been afraid to criticize lesbian writers who choose to "skip over" these issues in the name of feminism. I have not wanted to admit that my deepest personal sense of myself has not quite "caught up" with my "woman-identified" politics. “I think of how, even as a feminist lesbian, I have so wanted to ignore my own homophobia, my own hatred of myself for being queer.
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