A review by marxlee
Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989 by Pat Parker, Audre Lorde

emotional informative

So, now my problem begins of how to tell mama that her youngest child is a dyke. It took me 3 days to get up the nerve. And when I tell her all she says is, “Well, as long as you’re happy it’s alright with me.” How anti-climactic. Here I’ve been building up for this moment for 8 years and that’s it. Not even one tear or yell or look of shock.
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Black restaurant here in Oakland and as I was sitting at the table I noticed that they were serving Hunt’s Catsup. The thought struck me that probably the owners of that restaurant had no idea about H. L. Hunt and how he spends his money trying to undermine the position of Black people in this country and that it would be a very simple thing to gather that kind of information and pass it on to Black radio stations, newspapers, and simply to make up flyers, basically form letters to people like that restaurant owner so that they don’t in fact spend their money and give it to organizations that are working against their interest.
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I’ve spent a great amount of time trying to figure out the why’s of this and I keep coming out angry. All this time, I have been thinking that I have survived this system, have managed to place in a controllable state and I see this disease as a clear message that I have failed.
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That was so splendid of you to make that tape of Baldwin’s and send it, I didn’t think you’d remember. And you did, and we both thank you. (It’s a good repro, too!) // I would love to see what James Baldwin has to say about this shit.
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Damn the things we must survive to survive.
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Our decisions do not kill us, they are you and me making a move for life.
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I feel it’s my anger that has helped keep me alive and what the hell else are we supposed to erect against their homophobic racist sexist poison - a submissive grin?
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And in case you have ever tried 
To reach me
And I could not hear you
These words are in place 
Of the dead air
Still
Between us
~
I have been bothered by what I call “white folks ability to only deal with one problem at a time.” Actually it’s not so much dealing with one thing at a time as it is, the ability to convince oneself that a particular problem has been adequately dealt with.