1. it began with Audre Lorde.
It began with Audre Lorde, hardly a ghosted presence. As I followed her through the conferences of the late 1970s, I kept bumping into shadows. Lorde, relegated to the role of “commentator" at the closing session “The Personal and the Political” of the 1979 Second Sex Conference delivered what would become The Master's Tools.
I began initially attempting to determine who specifically Lorde addressed in these remarks. According to her biographer Alexis de Veaux, Lorde's remarks refered to “papers written by Linda Gordon, Camille Bristow, Bonnie Johnson, Manuela Fraire, and the conference coordinator, Jessica Benjamin — as embodying the limitations of the conference's scope.” As I track the panelists I realized that two African American women, Bonnie Johnson and Camille Bristow, gave a paper “Both And" "reflections on being black feminists."
I began initially attempting to determine who specifically Lorde addressed in these remarks. According to her biographer Alexis de Veaux, Lorde's remarks refered to “papers written by Linda Gordon, Camille Bristow, Bonnie Johnson, Manuela Fraire, and the conference coordinator, Jessica Benjamin — as embodying the limitations of the conference's scope.” As I track the panelists 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 when she said
"racism, sexism and homophobia are inseparable. Yet to read this program is to assume that lesbian and black women have no input into existentialism, the erotic, Women's culture and silence, developing feminist theory, or heterosexuality and power."
A total of five sessions and two concurrent groupings of fifteen workshops occurred at the conference. Looking at Lorde's specific references to “existentialism, the erotic, women’s culture and silence, developing feminist theory, or heterosexuality and power” makes it clear that she referred to the topics of the individual "sessions" and not to the concurrent "workshops." Yet Bristow and Johnson are clearly not included in her condemnation as she remarks "what does it mean in personal and political terms when even the two black women who present here were literally found at the last hour?" Yet I also realized in tracing various vrsion of The Maste's Tools that t in subsequent versions, Lorde excises Johnson and Bristow's names from her remarks, referring to them only as Black Panelists.
Still I remained curious about Bristow and Johnson. Camille Bristow I identified easily, but Bonnie Johnson, with her not uncommon name, proved more difficult.
Still I remained curious about Bristow and Johnson. Camille Bristow I identified easily, but Bonnie Johnson, with her not uncommon name, proved more difficult.
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