I began initially attempting to determine who specifically Lorde addressed in these remarks.  As I track the panelist I realized that two African American women, Bonnie Johnson and Camille Bristow, gave a paper “Both And ... reflections on being black feminists."  

Was Lorde criticizing them? 

As Lester Olson notes in his excellent analysis of The Master’s tools, “presumably. Lorde used the term panel to designate a session, because at least one workshop included black feminists Camille Bristow and Bonnie Johnson, who later spoke in the session with Lorde, and because Lorde herself participated in an earlier poetry reading.” COmparing the specifics of Lorde’s remarks against the conference program reveals that  “existentialism, the erotic, women’s culture and silence, developing feminist theory, or heterosexuality and power” are the topics of the panels that occurred, not the sessions.  

Still I remained curious about Bristow and Johnson.   Camille Bristow [link to her “cul de sac page] I identified easily, but Bonnie Johnson, with her not uncommon name[link to other bonnie johnson page], proved more difficult.