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Hello loved ones.

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This is sister doctor Alexis Pauline Gumbs,

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founder of the School of Our Lorde,

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and this is week 3 of our 21 week

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Resurrection Sunday series

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in honour of the persistent, unstoppable, survival [br]of the spirit of black lesbian poet warrior mother

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Audre Lorde.

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So this week, the poem that we're going to look at

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is called The Brown Menace, or, [br]Poem To The Survival of Roaches,

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which was published in Audre Lorde's collections, [br]New York City Headshop and Museum in 1974.

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And this poem is amazing to me in many ways.

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For me, it's one of the places where [br]we see Audre Lorde talking about

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survival on terms that go beyond [br]the human species.

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And...oh I have so much to say about this poem...

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but... why don't you check it out for yourself?

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"The Brown Menace,

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or Poem To The Survival of Roaches.

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Call me

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your deepest urge

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toward survival

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call me

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and my brothers and sisters

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in the sharp smell of your refusal

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call me

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roach and presumptuous

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nightmare on your white pillow

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your itch to destroy

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the indestructible

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part of yourself.

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Call me your own determination

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in the most detestable shape[br]you can become

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friend of your image[br]within me

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I am you

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in your most deeply cherished nightmare

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scuttling through the painted cracks

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you create to admit me

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into your kitchens

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into your fearful midnights

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into your values at noon

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into your most secret places

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with hate

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you learn to honor me

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by imitation

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as I alter -

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through your greedy preoccupations

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through your kitchen wars

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and your poisonous refusal -

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to survive.

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To survive.

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Survive."

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So this poem is incredible, confrontational,

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really takes on white supremacy's project

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to exterminate people of colour, very specifically,[br]"The Brown Menace".

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So right now in our contemporary society,

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what immigration policy looks like,

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what the war on drugs, [br]i.e. the war on the poor, looks like,

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is the same project of extermination,

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and we can see it in, um, 1978,

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Michel Foucault would talk about it in terms of[br]what's now called "biopolitics",

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I wanna remind you all this poem came out in 1974,[br]<i>before</i> he coined that term.

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<b>And</b>, this is an incredibly confrontational way

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to say that when you seek to[br]marginalize a portion of your own species,

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you seek to destroy the [br]indestructible part of yourself;

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you seek to not survive.

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And at the same time,

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this poem is amazing because it does[br]this deeply interpersonal work

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of how that which we want to destroy[br]when we see it in other people

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is really something we're working through[br]in ourselves.

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By using the figure of the roach in this case,

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Audre Lorde brings out that visceral feeling.

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The roach being the "most detestable shape",

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that most hated yet most resilient creature[br]that we think of or know about on this planet.

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That species that will outlive us, no matter what[br]we do to ourselves on this planet.

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And this poem itself has survived.

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I see legacies of it in the performances [br]of La Chica Boom,

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who does Juan Cucaracha shows,

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talking about what does it mean to take on [br]that status of the most hated creature.

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Cherrie Moraga shouted out this poem [br]at this event in Oakland several years back,

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and she talked about what it means to say[br]"call me roach",

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really to take on in identification and solidarity,

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that figure that is the most feared[br]by society.

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So I love this poem for all of that.

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And the assignment, the challenge for you,[br]should you choose to accept it,

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is to think about that person [br]who gives you that feeling.

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A person who you are disgusted with.

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It may be a person that you know [br]in your community or your life;

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it may be a political figure.

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...For a long time it was Clarence Thomas.

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And think about what is the lesson [br]for your evolution,

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that is tied to that feeling you have [br]for that other person;

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that other, other other, person,

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who you would want to say is nothing like you,

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but actually may - in your ability to see them - [br]hold the key to an indestructible part of yourself

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an evolution that you can demand from yourself

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at this moment because you can see them.

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That's your assignment.

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And, I want to read one of the poems...

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I worked with this poem 26 different times[br]for all the letters of the alphabet today,

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and I wanted to dedicate to us, [br]this Poem For The Letter S.

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"S" is for Sunday and survival,[br]and here it is:

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The Poem For The Letter S is

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survival

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survival

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sisters sharp smell shape scuttling secret

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survive

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survive

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survive.

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So that is this week's Resurrection Sunday[br]ritual for us.

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If you want to get in touch with me [br]and find one of your alphabetized poems

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to aid you, like a vitamin, as you seek to look at [br]that indestructible part of yourself,

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that you <i>don't</i> want to look at,

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but that you're seeing in other people [ <i>LAUGHS</i> ][br]who disgust you,

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please hit me up,

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you can check out the School of Our Lorde webpage

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to find our how you can get involved.

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And have such an amazing week!