sinister wisdom 52

AlliesSinister Wisdom 52
Spring/Summer 1994
Publisher: Sinister Wisdom, Inc.
Editors: Caryatis Cardea & Elana Dykewomon

0

Editorial readers and advisors: Cara Page, Dawn Martin, Jamie Lee Evans,
Laura Munter-Orabona, Susan Jill Kahn
Contributing editor: Gloria Anzaldua
Volunteer Coordinator: Susan Levinkind
Advertising Coordinator: Jamie Lee Evans
Fulfillment: Dolphin Waletzky
Proofreaders: Carol Ann Baker, Jessica Bucciarelli, Susan Goldberg, Susan
Levinkind
Office help, correspondence and accounting: Carol Ann Baker, Laura
Munter-Orabona, Linda Shear, Nina Wouk, Susan Levinkind
Thanks to Bobby Rothschild and Rebecca Kutlin of Tamed Technology
Distribution and mailing crew: Aimee Waldman, Carol Ann Baker,
Caryatis Cardea, Fan Warren, Hadas Weiss, Jamie Lee Evans, Laura
Munter-Orabona, Laura Stern, Lisa Horan, Mady Shumofsky, Michele
Nichols, Susan Goldberg, Susan Jill Kahn, Susan Witcoff
Reader for the Womyn's Braille Press: Judy Freespirit
Cover art: by Celia Rodriguez: ollin - symbol for balance & movement;
cross - symbol of roads crossing; diamond - the center, the mother;flowers - beauty, as in the flowering of life or creativity - all tosymbolize ALLIES - coming together in good spirit in spite of thedangers.

SINISTER WISDOM, founded 1976
Former editors and publishers: Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-81)
Michelle Oiff and Adrienne Rich (1981-83)
Michaele Uccella (1983-84)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1983-87)
Caryatis Cardea (1991-94)
Copyright © 1994 Sinister Wisdom, Inc. All rights reserved to individual artists and authors.
ISSN: 0196-1853. Printed in the U.S. on recycled paper.

Sinister Wisdom, Inc .• PO Box 3252 • Berkeley CA 94703 • US

Spring/Summer 1994

A Journal for the Lesbian Imaginationin the Arts and Politics_________________ Contents
35
67Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine
Caryatis Cardea • Notes for a Magazine
Upcoming Issues
Rachael Rosen • Words (poem)§§§
9 Jamie Lee Evans • Snapshots, an Introduction
13 Andrea Calderon: Interview
17 Lynn Scott: Interview
21 Lisa Rudman: Interview
26 Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz: Interview
31 Kit Yuen Quan: Interview, Alliances in Question
37 Mattie Richardson: Spice39 Hadas Weiss: Interview
43 Akiba Onada-Sikwoia: Interview
47 Gloria Anzaldua: Interview
53 Barbara Smith: The Tip Of The Iceberg§§§
57 Judith K. Witherow • Are You a Gypsy (poem)
58 Lisa Huebner • Traitor (poem)

Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural, multi-class, bom-womon lesbian space.
We seek to open, consider and advance the exploration of community
issues. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language to reflect our
diverse experiences and to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment, as lesbians evaluating our communities and our world.

li,'l
J c/L 4!zsjq¥

sinister wisdom #52 -Allies60 Caryatis Cardea • A Different Set of Values (essay)
71 Julia Penelope • December 29, 1993 (l~tter)
75 Jamie Lee Evans • Lesbians and the Even Steven
Syndrome (poem)
78 Neta C. Crawford • Diva Girl (poem)
0§§§79 Myke Johnson • Wanting to be Indian: Cultural
Appropriation in White Feminist Spirituality (theory)
89 Aspen. Fat Woman Strides (poem)
90 Sadie green • My Life Would Have an Altogether
Different Shape Without It (narrative)
96 karen thompson • Q & A (prose / poem)
98 Caryatis Cardea • Things To Do With Money (essay)§§§
101 Books received
106 Contributors' Notes
108 Ads and announcements§§§ARTcover Celia Rodriguez • Allies: coming together in good spirit inspite of the danger (marker pens)
25 Jean Weisinger • Self-protection (photo: Havana, Cuba,
1992)
52 Tarascon. Voices Calling Across the Borderlines(acrylic on canvas)
56 Jean Weisinger • Brooms and well-worn shoes (photo:
Uganda, Africa, 1993)
77 Jean Weisinger • Young officer (photo: Uganda, Africa
1993)
95 Billie Miracle • untitled (pen & ink)

Spring/Summer 1994 3____________ Notes for a Magazine
Correcting the Herstorical Record
Since the beginning of 1991, Caryatis Cardea's work on Sinister
Wisdom changed from hard-working volunteer to co-editor. From
the Retrospective (#42/43) on, she shared all the work with mefrom writing difficult, detailed editorial letters to picking up andcoping with the mail to typing the issues. Many dykes have put
their energy into Sinister Wisdom and the journal never would
have come out without their participation - we've tried to acknowledge their contributions acurately on the in?ide front covers.
But Caryatis has been an equal partner in all decision-making
around the magazine in the last three years, every day, and hastaken over full responsibility for the magazine on two occasions
when I left for two months. That I let her work go unrecognized
during this time is a mark of my classism. We were both doing thesame work, but I've been getting the credit. In truth, I've been
appropriating her labor within a hierarchical structure, for which
I cannot apologize deeply enough to her and to you.
With this issue, she is resigning from that co-editorship. It
has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with Caryatis on
Sinister Wisdom since 1988, among the most productive, engaging
work relationships that I've ever had. Work is one of the ways I
define my self and self-worth in the world - that I could misshow important that recognition would be to a lesbian close to me
has been a tremendous source of grief to me since Caryatis took
the risk to let me know what I had done several months ago.
Making sure she gets the credit she deserves for her years ofwork is one way to address the injustice I've done.
It takes time for perceptions to change but they have to startchanging here: Caryatis Cardea has been co-editor of Sinister
Wisdom from 1991 to 1994, and we will list that on the inside
cover with the other past editors' credits from now on .

•••

4

sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

This issue of Sinister Wisdom owes most of its substance to theenergy, inspiration and tireless effort of Jamie Lee Evans. Her
work preparing ten interviews for p.,ublication in two months
time is nothing less than amazing.
We know many of you are out there struggling with theissues of alliance, which touch us in deep, personal ways. When
we examine our understanding of who we're allied with, we're
probing our world views, shaping our beliefs about community.
Our assumptions about who we are, what we have to give, who
our friends are, what we expect from them may all be called into
question. Jamie's piece, "Snapshots, an Introduction" offers botha hopeful and critical reflection on the nature of allies - I refer
you to it as a frame for this issue of S W Jamie said one of the things
she left out of her introduction was that we have to not disappear
when-we're called on our mistakes - we have to stay: keep working with and caring about each other.

•••

While I intend to spend the rest of my life working with andloving lesbians, I'm getting ready to leave Sinister Wisdom. I planon doing the production work for #53 and editing #54, Lesbians
and Religion, which will be my last issue as an editor. Getting
this issue to press has been more difficult than usual for sevenvery different reasons - by #54 I hope to have had the time towrite about the last seven years with Sinister Wisdom.
Caryatis' Notes on the next page give information on ourplans for passing S Won. We've done a lot of work to keep Sinister
Wisdom in good material order. The financial support many ofyou sent in the last three months has helped, but money remains
tight, and we are in real need of new equipment. Please keep
renewing your'subscriptions, talking about Sinister Wisdom, getting your friends to subscribe! This is the longest-lived lesbianjournal publishing - we want to see it continue with renewed
vitality and community participation.

Elana Dykewomon

Spring/Summer 1994 5_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Notes for a Magazine

A t Sinister Wisdom, we struggle all the time - with each other,with our contributors, our readers, our politics and the magazine
process itself. The short-term purpose is to put out a journal; longterm, to become allies. It seemed natural for us to do an issue on
Allies before this editorial group passes SW to new editors.
Submissions were, once again, surprisingly low. (I should
think you all would send more writing in just to stop me fromcomplaining about it!) When Sauda and I edited the issue on
Ethics, we were assured the low number of submissions was dueto the difficulty of the theme. Allies, we were equally assured,would bring the ideas rolling in.
Wrong. But thanks to those who wrote about dykes failing to
be good allies, we found that very specific questions were needed
to learn what lesbians want from our allies. Jamie Lee Evans
asked those questions. Her series of interviews forms the corearound which this issue is organized.
This is my last issue of Sinister Wisdom. My work has increased
over the years and, as often happens to lower-class dykes, it hasgone without proper credit. Realizing that my efforts would
evaporate with my departure, leaving no historical record of mycontributions to Sw, I now receive the title of editor at the moment of my withdrawal from the job. Better late than never,though, because lesbian community is littered with stories likemine. I thank all the dykes with whom I've worked here. It has
been a profound learning experience and one which my disability is unlikely to allow me to duplicate.
At the end of 1994, Elana Dykewomon will edit her last issueof SW We will announce themes and guest editors for the issues
that will carry us until a new editor (or group of editors) is found .
We are committed to passing the journal to lesbians of color and,for that purpose, many of the dykes of color who have worked on
SW on past issues will make the choice. Sinister Wisdom willcontinue and we hope your support for it will continue as well.

Caryatis Cardea
Oakland, CA6sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesUpcoming Issues ______~_______#53 Old Lesbians/Dykes: Guest editored by eight lesbians oversixty, this special issue demystifies the stereotypical images bredby our youth oriented society. We are not only society's mothers
and grandmothers. We are questioning, still developing womenfrom 60 upward, creating new images. Old ain't,what it used to
be! And never was. We want this issue to be a voice for old
lesbians in all our variety. Out in August, 1994.
#54 Lesbians and Religion (or: fuck Xmas): to be edited by lesbians raised in other than christian households, all dykes invited
to contribute. In the americas, we live in primarily christiancountries. But many of us grew up in muslim, buddhist, hindu,
jewish, native, atheist or other belief systems, We want to explore
what happens when belief systems conflict and what those conflicts mean to our sense(s) of community (that is, analysis ofbeing submerged/ oppressed by christian assumptions and how
we carry that submersion or rebellion against oppression into
daily dyke life) , There are questions to ask, and be asked by,lesbians who are reclaiming their cultural roots in santeria,yoruban traditions or the goddess/pagan religions of europe.
And then there are issues of cultural appropriation: if, for instance, raised-christian dykes do sweat .lodge rituals or raisedjewish dykes take up buddhism, do we attribute that to a senseof imperialist entitlement, self-hatred or evolutionary blendingof core spiritual expressions? In a world dominated by godpolitics, we don't want to pose "goddesses" as an alternative,
saving belief - we want to know how dykes deal with religion:in the intimacy of our friendship networks, in the global perspective of rising fundamentalism. This is the place to bringanger, alienation, careful analysis of hierarchical archetypes,
righteous indignation, creative re-visioning and dyke takes on
the quest for life's meaning. Deadline: June 1, 1994.

Spring/Summer 1994 7

Rachael Rosen

Words

I walk down the street. My legs turn to jello.
Maybe I should stick them in the fridge.
I scan my brain for more jokes - to keep me going.
Instead, I wonder if I can still walk the talk.
I suppose I can, if I'm not too weak-kneed.
My disabilities are so unstable, unpredictable.
So perhaps one day I will be able
to run away from it all.
But for now, I need to deal.
I think that if I'm too tired
to walk my talk,I could voice my politics.
I could speak up and show the world.
But sometimes
I run out of breath.
And then I think that it is too dangerous
to use words anyway.
I try to count the words that I have usedagainst myself,
against others.
Unintentionally.
What was that thing about sticks and stones?
Words have almost killed me.
Apologies and understandings,
mine and others,
have healed me.
Allies.

8

sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Spring/Summer 1994 9

Jamie Lee Evans
This project is dedicated to my always allies and treasured friends: Kit
Yuen Quan, Sauda Burch, Leslie Levy and Caryatis Cardea.

Snapshots
The issue of allies comes up in my life a lot. I am a lower-class,mixed-blood dyke primarily of Asian and European descent. My
lover is an Irish, ex-Catholic, middle-class wOman. I work parttime in a multi-racial, feminist press, and part-time at a multiracial, radical rape crisis center. Jewish dykes were my first rolemodels of feminist lesbians. I work in coalition with many white
women in the struggle to end violence against women. I am 27
years old, fat, able-bodied and I believe in the liberation of all
women. I have allies, I need allies and I strive to be an ally on adaily level, as a worker, an activist, a friend and lover.
Allies or All lies?
Allies are the ones who help to keep me alive. Friends are thewomen who make me glad to be alive. I may not know each ally
on a personal level, but I trust them to fight for me, make spacefor me (sometimes literally) and have sensibilities and actions
that will keep roads open to me. Friends are the allies who go
farther and love me, nurture me, invoke my playful side, appreciate my intellectual side and attempt to understand me in all theplaces that I come from.
Throughout my life I have made many honest and somequestionable alliances. Sometimes I have expected and assumed
and needed women to be more than they were, i.e., be more aware,thoughtful, politically-minded, committed to dismantling oppression, etc. I have needed to believe the best in women. And
I'm sure other women have also tried to believe the best in me,
sometimes disappointedly. There have been times that even in
the most equal of circumstances, we let each other down. Some-

10 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

times circumstances were in the way of us heing anything to eachother at all. If I'm tired, feeling confused and playing out old
unhealthy patterns in my life, chances are that I'm not going to
be a good ally. When I can't be there for myself, and those times
do come, I know I'm unable to be there for anyone else.
I worked on this project because I want and need to know
why and how dykes act as allies to each other. I want to hearstories, examples, successes and even failures. I need this issue
for myself: to learn how to be an ally to others and as a resource
to women who are trying to be good allies to me. I wanted shortpieces, a snapshot from each woman, just enough to make us
think, stories we'd remember, share, talk about. From interracial
relationships to multicultural work environments, to international alliances, to friendship networks to spiritual practices andpolitical organizing: I need to know much more than the current
and seemingly endless lesbian obsession on what women dowith and to each other in bed!
I also wanted to read what general theories dykes had on alliances. Are there philosophical but accessible thoughts on who
makes a good ally and whether or not coalition work should bea priority in our communities? I want something to hand over tothe next triend or sister who asks, "What can I do?" or says "But
I didn't know what the right thing was to do." Then I will charge
her $5 and give it to Sinister Wisdom, the individual sales route!
If I don't care about you, how can I care about your life?

After the conversations began, this project took on new
weight, new meaning. I began to feel the honor, respect, thecommunity that I want so much among sisters who dare, resist
and love with a fierceness, a passion. I remembered so clearly an
African American sister who said to me in a multicultural groupof women of color that she wanted to know each and all of ourstories and cultures because "If she didn't care about each of us,
how could she care about our lives?" How could she do the work?
How could she fully motivate herself? I took that thought homewith me that night. I thought of some white women friends andcomrades in my life with whom I've never discussed my per-

Spring/Summer 1994 11

sonal/political struggles over racism. I thought of all the rhetoric
I'd written about violence against women and all the times I'd
not asked for the stories of the sisters I was working with. Politics without heart. Is this true ally-ship? But I do care about
women's lives and I want to know our many stories and cultures
so that I can act in an informed and ethical way, so that my politics
are not without love.
The following interviews and gathered pieces are from dykesof color, Jewish dykes, cultural activists and political activists.
First, I asked for their submissions, and when time constraints
kept getting me "no's," I instead asked for taped conversations,a chat, a phone call and, yes, eight women agreed to talk. Barbara
Smith and Mattie Richardson faxed me their pieces and ultimately every dyke who was interviewed had a chance to edit,
revise and add commentary to their own edited interview'. In theend I have ten lesbian stories: some they wrote, some they spoke
and some they did both.
I've taken my voice out of the following seven modified
interviews and I offer you snapshots of the thoughts and experiences of ten lesbians in our community. I've removed my voicebecause I wanted you to know these women without my questions and comments interrupting the flow. Some of the women
I know closely and some through my work (of many kinds); allare women who have important experiences and ideas to share.
Although my questions and comments to them do not appear inprint, I want to acknowledge the power I had in directing andguiding our talks together. I also want to be accountable for myediting and selecting what few ideas to use in each piece, someof our individual conversations amounted to over thirty pages!
And it is here that I want to thank Andrea Calderon, Emily
LaBarbara Twarog, Hadas Weiss, Lisa Horan and especially Noelle
Hanrahan for their incredible ally work in helping me transcribe
these monstrous essays. Without these women typing to theeleventh hour, this project would have gone even further past thedeadline. I also want to thank myoid roommate Lisa Rudman* With the exception of Gloria Anzaldua

12 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

who told me to ask for help and when I didn't do it, she asked forme. When I was shocked that women would donate twenty
hours with six hours notice to help my work, Lisa told me thatdykes care about me and believe in the work that I do andtherefore, would gladly help. Allies remind you of your value inthe community when you forget.
Because these pieces are mostly taken from speech, I thinkthey will be best when read aloud. So grab a friend, an ally or alover and read these pieces aloud to each other. Read them atdinner, in bed, while the other takes a bath, over the phone, in thedaytime or at night. If your life experience is not here, or even if
it is, plan a night to talk to your friends and allies about yourrelationships and struggles. Write your own snapshot and send
it to all your friends . Tell your story and hear someone else's.
Care about your own life and your sisters', remember what
you're fighting for.
I care about my sisters' lives and I care about lesbian lives. I
want to know all lesbian cultures and stories so that my workmeans more than recyclable propaganda. I thank Akiba, Andrea,
Barbara, Gloria, Hadas, Kit, Lisa, Lynn, Mattie and Melanie fortelling me some of their lives. With close attention to their words,
I'm sure you'll care too.

Spring/Summer 1994

13

Andrea Calder6nInterviewed November 27, 1993
Oakland, CA

Andrea Calderon is a 22 year old born and raised Chilena ofMapuche andAymara and Jewish descent. She's a political, spiritual lesbian organizer
and artist. She is also the mother of two black cats.
The work that I have been doing and love to do is coalition work
between Women of Color, U.S. and international. The Latina
community specifically is where I choose to focus my energy andmy spirit. It is extremely important for us as Women of Color tocome together to do coalition work; I believe it brings the work
we do to another level. I also think it is very important for us as
Women of Color to connect internationally. What white institu-

14 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

tions and white power have always done il1 this country is separate People of Color here from where their roots are, separate
them from the rest of the world and push the concept of minority.
When you look at who we are; there is no doubt we are themajority in this world. We have been the majority throughou
history and our ancestors were the majority before us. We holda lot of pain but also a lot of power.
There are a lot of obstacles in coalition-building and it's very
hard to get past them because we are in a country and a world
where People of Color are against each other. That's the whole
way the system is built; that's how capitalism is built. My understanding of this society is that it is built in a capitalist, racist andimperialist system. So, we really have to struggle with theseissues. As a woman who was not born in this country and cameto this country only four years ago, who did all my growing up
in a "third world" country, one issue that's been hard in terms of
being able to talk to other sisters, make them understand theimportance of our working together, is that sometimes there's
not a concept of what imperialism is. As a Chilean woman whogrew up in a dictatorship, sponsored by the U.S. government,
imperialism is very real. It's an obstacle in doing coalition-building
between Women of Color in the U.S. In this country, the people
who are born and raised in it don't have much of an understanding of what imperialism is. Of course for everybody there's aprocess of awareness but there's a significant struggle with putting to rest the concept that, yes, if you are a U.S. citizen and the
U.S. is put at the center of the world, then you do have an impact
on the "third world." 1'v,e even encountered ignorant statementsfrom People of Color in this country around the "third world ."Forexample, "Oh, you all just love dictatorships and you can't manage each other." There's just an ignorance about our countries.
What J'm baSically trying to point out is that ignorance issomething that is fed to our communities and it takes educating
and struggling and doing coalition work to get through it. The
hard part of my coalition work is struggling with other sisters toreally get that imperialism is important and it affects all our lives.
Imperialism is very real in the U.S. too. People of Color live
under a dictatorship here too. 1'm talking about People of ColorSpring/Summer 1994 15

being able to practice our spirituality freely. I'm talking about
the drugs and arms being brought into our communities. I'm
talking about People of Color's struggles censore4 through history.
And how many women and men from our communities are in jail?
I'm talking about police brutality, border patrol brutality, and theraids on the "illegal aliens." I'm talking about political prisoners
and the many activists that this government has killed too - the"disappeared" of this country! The U.S., called the "melting pot," isreally the "frying pan" - especially for Lesbians of Color.
I know some very tough sisters who are organizing in theircommunities but when it comes to having a sense of international politics, it's like, 'Who cares? It's not really relevant to me."
And then on the other hand, in my work with international women,
growing up outside of this country we have also been fed certain
images of U.S. People of Color. I'm talking about images of
Latinos, Asians, African Americans and Native Americans. And
these images come through the media. And the media is soakedwith racism. In our countries, we get images of our own people
that are distorted. And when it comes to working with U.S. andInternational Women of Color, these things are very real, are very
there. Being there in the middle of it where sisters of the "third
world" are making assumptions of the sisters in the U.S., and thesisters of the U.S. are patronizing "third world" sisters, is very hard.
This is a really big issue in terms of coalition-building with sisters.
I've seen such beauty and such power when U.S. and International Sisters of Color come together. It is so powerful. That
connection is so important. For Sisters of Color in this country toconnect to women that live where their roots are is so powerful.
And for sisters outside of this country to connect with theirsisters who have left and go through so much shit in this country,
understanding that pain - this is also really powerful.
Really important ingredients in coalition-building are listening, speaking, taking risks and respecting each other - oneof the most important things, and one of the hardest things, too.
Because when a sister is saying something extremely offensive
to your community or when a sister is telling you something thatis totally making your community invisible, it's very painful. A
good ally is someone who is committed to struggling. If I'm

16 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

struggling, if I'm putting all that energy into building a coalition,
I want to know that the person I'm building it with is committed
and that we're building it on a solid -relationship. Although we
may be doing our separate work within our communities, I
know that when I need your support, it'll be there. And then
we're ready to challenge others together and challenge each other.
I need allies that are going to be there with me when I needto challenge issues and people. Lesbians of Color are always
being put in hard positions and being scapegoated. We are constantly scapegoated by white people - even by white "antiracist" radical lesbians when the shit hits the fan or when we
start making them feel uncomfortable. We're also scapegoatedsometimes by our own brothers and sisters. We're constantly inthe forefront of all struggles. It's so easy to feel alone and overwhelmed. As a Woman of Color, challenging white institutions,challenging the system period - you're doing something radical.
You are radical. When you bring issues of homophobia, class,imperialism in the forefront, you are being radical. That can beboth powerful and alienating. I need an ally who will be with me
and will struggle with me, will make sure that we're OK. In a
human, spiritual and a political way.
If we don't take the risk to make alliances, we're really hurting each other. Alliances are extremely important between Peopleof Color. There is danger in not making alliances. We become
more and more isolated from each other and then it's easier forthem to pit us against each other. It's a fact of everyday life how
we're pitted against each other.
The rewards of coalition-building are when I see a sister fromanother community taking up for her community and mine. Or
when she's challenging people from her own community on
their ignorance towards my community. Or when I see U.S.
Sisters of Color taking responsibility and really pushing on
issues of imperialism. That's when I feel that my work is good.
In this way, we honor ourselves and each other, and continue thestruggle of our ancestors.

Spring/Summer 1994 17

Interviewed December 2, 1993
San Francisco, CA

Lynn Scott is 49 years old, of African, Indigenous and European descent(in this lifetime). She has lived in the Bay Area all of her life and grew up
in a family who struggled economically. She is a mother of two adultchildren and a grandmother to one jewel. She has a strong spiritual
identity deriving support from the teachings of Ifd (from the Yoruba of
Nigeria), some Lakota traditions, and also from ways that "sit right"
with her.

An ally is beside you or behind you and has your back; together
you share certain principles. An ally will speak up for you and notallow others to speak against you, even when you are not present.
An ally is willing to be a "frontliner." Wimmin have shown up
being my ally when I didn't expect it and they have also not shown
up when I expected that they would. At times, an ally has "pulled
my coat," offering constructive insight and guidance when my18 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

own perspective was cloudy.
Alliances seem to reveal themselves most often during timesof stress. In my experience, allies have at various times given me
an extra boost of energy, or kept me from feeling crazy or alone.
Allies have also taught and modeled courage and conviction in
the face of fear. I have found support and alliance from humanbeings with many different labels - wimmin, men, children,
lesbian, heterosexual, disabled, African American, Chinese
American, Indigenous American, Mexicana, Puerto Rican, Chilean, European American, mixed heritage, friend, neighbor, coworker, and others I have not identified by labels. Of course,
how one is "labeled" by society influences one's experience andwhere one may be on an issue. However, we are multidimensional beings who cannot be pigeon-holed as to who we are andhow we will respond.
A story from my personal herstory might illustrate some ofthese points. At a preliminary divorce hearing in 1977, it was
ruled that because I was a lesbian, I was an unfit mother. Temporary
custody of my two children was granted to their father with novisitation rights for me. The courtroom experience was horriblemy shifty ex-husband, his slimy attorney, a uniformed bailiff,
the soul-less conservative judge, a detached court reporter, andme. No allies!
Prior to the hearing, I'd contacted a white, lesbian lawyer
who'd been recommended to me. I was nervous about the "routine" hearing because my "ex" had not returned the children
from a weekend but I asked her as many questions as I could. She
assured me it would be a simple matter for me to represent
myself at the hearing and request a postponement. She suggested that we could meet again and talk about her representingme. (I had very little money for legal fees and had planned a"Nolo Press Do-It-Yourself Divorce"). She was a lesbian, but not
my ally.
As the issue of my fitness for custody of the children unfolded in my family, my mother, father, brother (who testified forme in court), and my mother-in-law (who wrote me a letter I will
forever cherish) showed their alliance by directly addressing me

Spring/Summer 1994 19

and giving their support. I honor them for their clarity andforthrightness. The silence of my other in-laws who knew about
the case left me not knowing where they were. I felt hurt and castaside.
As the issue unfolded in the straight community I had beena part of with my "ex," two wimmin came forth to let me know
they were with me against the injustice and vindictiveness. They
did not understand a lot about me being a lesbian, but they werewith me as a friend and mother. Their embrace softened the harshsilences of many others who had been "my friends." One of thewimmin supported me every inch of the way to get the best
representation and to keep my hopes high . .The other womon
testified in my behalf. Both were true allies.
I also went to a support group of African American lesbians
that I'd been a part of and told them what I'd been going through.
There were promises to do fundraising for my case, but it didn~t
go far. I was told that about $40 was raised, but the individual in
charge of the account never followed through with giving me themoney. However, one womon in the group took a risk and got a
personal loan for me that was of tremendous help. Although we
had only established a casual relationship, she showed up as anally for me. I respect her so highly for really putting sisterhood
into practice. A few other wimmin from the group gave me
courtroom support.
My attorney (another white lesbian) was excellent. She waS
an ally for sure, in the way that she showed compassion andrespect to me and my family, and in the way she "fought" for mein court. We won the case (although lesbian mothers are still
having their children taken away) and my children came back tolive with me. It was a time of excitement. I gave myself a victory
party. Many of the people who were vocal about support andfundraising were right there ... there for the victory, but where
were they for the work?
Why are there so many disappointments in alliances? For me,
when I have had superficial relationships, it has undermined myunderstanding of who my real allies are. I need to challenge
myself to get more information from people who I associate

20

sinister wisdom #52 -Allieswith, and to get clarity about the cues that I perceive. Perhaps I
need to pose situations for us to explore together like, ''What if
such and such happened, where would you be? And this is where
I'd be if .. ." My personal responsibility in alliances is to be clear
within, to assume nothing, to ask, and to speak my truth so as toreveal where I'm coming from. Of course, it is all easier said than
done! I/we have all been so damaged - being children, being
girl-children, being colored girl-children - and carry wounds(sometimes still festering) of self-hatred and internalized-ISMs!
Nevertheless, I/we must forge past the fear or be ruled by it.
I know that I have been an ally in a small circle of wimminfriends . I've been an ally by letting them have their process, by
being "there" over the long haul, by showing up with material
support and emotional support (which I consider material support), by praying for and with them, by not asking tit for tat, andby opening myself up, too. I haven't always understood the
dynamic of receiving as the balance of giving. My Homegirls arevery happy when I call upon them to be my allies; just as I feela sense of respect when they call upon me. It is an honor to besomeone's ally. This is an important concept.

Spring/Summer 1994 21

Lisa Rudman
Interviewed December 2, 1993
Oakland, CA

Lisa Rudman is a 33 year old lesbian feminist, anti-imperialist activist,
fat Jewish commie dyke. She's a member of Women Against Imperialism
and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. She is a political video
maker and a leaflet queen.

In my mind, by definition, alliances are multi-issue because asallies you're dealing with each other as whole people(s), not justaround a particular issue that we might be in a short-term coalition around. What that means for lesbians is embracing an agendathat seeks the liberation of all people. I can't see how we caneradicate homophobia if white supremacy, anti-semitism,

22

sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesclassism, ableism, and all the other do~nations are still there.
"Solidarity" is a term that was introduced to me around international political work, and I thillk it can include some realexchange, mutual learning and connecting. When I think of theword "alliance" though, it seems to add a dimension of per-sonalcommitment and connection that comes from your life depending on it. I don't mean material survival necessarily. While "solidarity" can come from a desire to "do the right thing," "alliance"
is when I refuse to live with things the way they are, and I have tostruggle more intensely with my own relationship/participationin systems of domination while being an ally or having allies.
Allies are about recognizing power differences and paternalism.
With allies, you're gonna take some criticism, give some criticism and hash it out. I don't even know if these distjnctions are
related to "official" definitions, and really what matters more is
our actions, not word definitions.
I think allies recognize differences and connections between
us and ask, how are we going to function with each other? How
are we going to move together or move separately and then cometogether to actually build something (a relationship, an organization, a movement) effective and sustaining and not simply
short term.
If I'm your ally, I'm going to take some of the heat that heads
your way. There's risk involved. It's not just sort of some nice,feel-good kind of thing. When you're from groups that havemore power, it's "acceptable" to sort of feel bad or guilty, but
nothing more. We white middle-class people get this trainingthat subverts our rage, like we're traitors to our race and class if
we're resisters. The point I'm trying to get around to is that allies
are side by side, shoulder to shoulder. I'm not just mushing
everybody together as if we're all the same, but when the shit
comes down, you're still there. Allies are about accountability
and recognizing differences in power and privilege, and taking
on different roles in struggle; sitting down and figuring out,
what's gonna be mutually respectful and productive. It's anongoing challenge for us as white people to check our tendency
to put ourselves at the center, to be the "definers." I think bellSpring/Summer 1994 23

hooks talks about that aspect ...
To be more concrete, at this year's National Lesbian and Gay
Task Force conference, lesbians and gay men of color had a lot ofpolitical leadership and the empowerment to set priorities, andquite a number of white participants were overtly whining andcomplaining about that. It seemed like struggles over race andclass had been really brewing over time, and this year the discussions around the North American Free Trade Agreement were an
example of people of color leading a struggle, and challenging
the rest of us to, also. It included us struggling intensely withother white lesbians and gay men to see the connection between
NAFTA, race, class, gender oppression a~d the fight against
lesbophobia and homophobia.
More concretes? O.K. We approach reproductive rights as
broader than just abortion rights, and we're working as allies
with women of color who are leading the campaign against thebirth control drug "Depo-Prevera." Also, in the 500 Years ofResistance/ Anti-Columbus Quincentennial coalition, it seemed
to come back to self-determination, and ways o'f working thatrecog-nize differences in style, experiences, and perspective not to mention differences in power and privilege! What levelsof struggle are available to what people? As allies, what are ourroles? In the midst of working together against colonialism andracism, how do we interrrupt sexism and homophobia, in waysthat aren't simultaneously racist?
It feels sort of shorthand to name other instances for you, but
certainly issues of access/power and allies are in my political
video work and with the heterosexual feminists I work with. I
have to admit I think I work with some of the most pro-Iesbianliberation allies around, who work for lesbian issues in a principled way. I try to be an ally to my friend Pam who's a great
political activist dyke. She has a degenerative illness/disability
and really (patiently? frustratingly?) struggles with me and ourfriends about our ableism. Also, I've been looking at my internalized anti-semitism and .I'm beginning to see when women arebeing my ally around anti-semitism or not.
When you ask me about building alliances with lesbians of24 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

color, and lesbian of color organization~, I think of the importance of coming into an alliance from a "homebase." In my political
herstory, I come from a tradition of ..relating to people as part oftheir nation, or people, or community. If alliance is about a redistribution of power and privilege, then when people come to thetable as members of groups that empower them, it invigorates thewhole process. Because you and I are trying to be allies alreadyknowing who we are, and have our own collectives or circles forback-up and insight. I think we white lesbians have to prioritize
work that respects and supports lesbian of color organizations.
Among alliances of lesbians of color and white lesbians,
friendships and social connections play an important role inbuilding these ally relationships. Respect, trust, love and friendship totally makes the harder parts of us working together possible! For white lesbians, I think the history of our institutional
and personal racism along with our simultaneous oppression aslesbians complicates the ways we "own" our situations and deal
with all of the barriers created by that. Allies are about mutual
respect and support, and that comes in the form of direct material
support or taking a position to fight oppression as a white dyke
and taking risks. I think the struggle made about the oppressiveness of the Lesbian Culture book was critically important, scary,and not resolved unfortunately, but crucial to be engaged inamongst white lesbians.
We have so much work to do on this and I feel like we're stilltrying to figure it out. And as we figure it out, how to put it into
practice. More questions: as allies, how do we support the'separate work we do and work together too? When is it appropriate
and/or effective? I think sometimes there's this desire to "patch
it up and make it better" or work together in ways that are only
superficially dealing with the vast differences in power andprivilege among us. Issues of "parity" and real power in coalitions
are crucial; simultaneously, there are ways of working in separate ally groups, so that there's coordination plus autonomy.
To answer your question of whether or not we're doing ourwork: we could absolutely do better. If we were doing everythingthat we need to be doing, we'd see women of color institutions
having absolute viability and organizational health. If we wereSpring/Summer 1994

25

doing everything we could, Kitchen Table Press would be gigantic, flourishing - not having to be distracted by survival. Places
like the Asian Women's Shelter would have enough volunteers,
etc. One way to answer the question is to just look at the results.
I'm not exempt from the criticisms around this work, and I
certainly don't have all the answers. I can say that many feminists, particularly lesbians and especially lesbians of color andother women of color, have had a large impact on my thinking
and activism; that's something I'd like to acknowledge and buildon.

Self-protection
Havana, Cuba, 1992

Jean Weisinger

26

sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesMelanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Phone interview from New York City
November 2'7, 1993

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz is a 48 year old Jewish lesbian. She is a former
editor of Sinister Wisdom, the director of Jews for Racial and Economic
Justice and lives in New York City. She has two books out from Aunt Lute
Books, My Jewish Face & Other Stories and The Issue Is Power:
Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance.

I am concerned with taking the issue of allies beyond sticking
up for your friends and interrupting personal racism; I want us
also to address the political arena. You ask about political workin the lesbian community. I am sure that there are people who
disagree with this - but aside from the issue of lesbian visibility, I don't think that there is a lesbian political agenda separate
from the feminist agenda or the gay/queer agenda. How do you
separate out feminist issues, the issues that affect women? The
economic issues, the issues of homophobia, the particular waysthat they impact lesbians? Economic issues are lesbian issues.
Hate crimes are a lesbian issue. Misogyny is a lesbian issue. I see
a need for lesbians to act visibly as lesbians in many of thesestruggles, in the same way that, as a Jew, I see the need to act
visibly as Jews in these struggles. We need to participate forcefully in the struggles of the nation.
I think that there is a lot more line-crossing in the lesbiancommunity than in other communities. A lot of us have relationships, intimate relationships and friendships, and form families
across lines of color and class. Close relationships and reallyhaving a stake in the lives of people who are not your communityof origin - these make you a better ally because their struggle
becomes your own. The more distance that you have from another community's experience and struggle, the harder it is foryou to be a really good ally. If you don't really understand it [thestruggle], you don't bring the same kind of passion to it.
[The organization that I direct] Jews for Racial and EconomicSpring/Summer 1994 27

Justice (JFREJ) was founded in 1990 when Nelson Mandela wasreleased from prison and there was a threat from some Jews ofprotesting his visit to New York because he had embraced Yassar
Arafat. So, among progressive Jews, some who were working in
the Jewish community and some who were working in various
progressive movements, people really felt the need to speak up
and say that that is not the only view in the Jewish Community.
Some progressive Jews organized a Jewish welcome for Nelson
Mandela, and they had a Shabat service (a Friday night service),and they raised money for the ANC (African National Congress).
So that was our opening activity, and since then we have prettymuch focused on local! domestic issues and· particularly on issues in New York City. We basically work on two fronts: one, in
the Jewish community, doing education to connect up Jewish
values and concerns with anti-racist and economic justice efforts; and two, in coalitions. We try to strengthen the base of what
we bring to coalitions, by doing the education work in the Jewish
community. We've gone from an organization that was foundedby forty-three people to a membership organization of 350, witha large mailing list that is growing rapidly. A lot of the activists
in JFREJ are lesbians.
Recently I got a call from a Jewish union official from local
1199, which is a hospital and health care employees' union. The
workers of a nursing home were organizing against the home's
owner. They wanted union representation, and the owner wasjust stalling them, which is very common. And the workers were
mostly immigrants - Caribbean and Latino, mostly women.
What the owner was doing was deflecting them and trying toundermine their organizing by claiming that anti-Semitism wasinvolved. And we checked it out. We wouldn't ignore that possibility, but that is not what was going on. So it was very importantto the union to have Jewish support to counter the owner's
attempt to deflect the workers' attempt to organize. We werecalled to help mobilize some Jewish support, which we werereally happy to do. We contacted some rabbis, I went and spokeat the rally and got members of JFREJ to write letters and makephone calls and so on.

28sinister w isdom #52 -AlliesWhat happened is that at least the progressive Jewish community knew about this struggle and was not misled by what theowner was trying to do. I know that he got a lot of calls and that
we were at least able to disrupt business as usual at the nursing
home. I think the main impact it created was an opportunity fora working relationship between us and 1199. It was a time when
we were asked for support and we were able to give it. A bit later,
we were organizing an event where we needed space. 1199 has anauditorium and they were willing to let us use it. I guess that I see
alliance as where you recognize that you have a common purpose, some over-arching purpose, which is about seeking justice,and you support each other's work and do what you can for eachother when you can. I see my work now as being in a kind ofprimitive stage of creating opportunities for building trust sothat more alliance is possible, building towards a time when
there is more working together.

+++
You ask about Christmas - how that is for me, as a Jew.
Really varied. I grew up in New York and now that I am back in
New York, Christmas is not the same source of pain to me as it has
been in other places I have lived. Because in New York there is
not an assumption that you are Christian. Christmas is very
commercial and annoying but it is not as though ~verybody
assumes without question that you are celebrating Christmas.
Where Christmas has been most painful for me is in communities where I have felt totally invisibile. Like "Merry Christmas,
have a Happy ... , What are you doing for Christmas?" You know
just that sort of incessant situation where you are constantly
having to explain yourself. What non Jews can do for Jews aroundthis time is remember.
There is a very interesting, not yet fully developed, possibility for alliance between Jews and Muslims around this time.
Also with other non-Christians in this country: many Asianpeoples, Buddhists, Hindu, and all the other religions. We can allrecognize that Christianity is the dominant religion of this country, and that all other religions/ cultures need to be made visible.
I think there is a lot of opportunity, particularly around kids

Spring/Summer 1994 29

in school. Lesbians who either have children in the schools or
who are teachers can do really important work around holidays.
Making non-Christian holidays and traditions visible offers anatural opportunity for multi-cultural work.
One more thing: it is a real drag to be a Jew {and I assume thisis true for other non-Christians} and have to always be the one
pointing out that Christmas is not everybody's holiday. You gettreated like the grinch who stole Christmas. I always appreciate
it immensely when other women take that on, so that it doesn't
always have to be me.
Basically, being a good ally means using your common sense,
your heart, energy, resources. What you h~ve. What you cancontribute.

30 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

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Spring/Summer 1994 31

Kit Yuen Quan
Telephone interview from San Francisco
November 30, 1993

Kit Yuen Quan is a 32 year old Chinese American immigrant from HongKong. This article is a work in progress.

Alliances in Question
PhySically I've removed myself from the lesbian feminist movement but all I have to do is open a book written from a lesbian
feminist perspective and it all comes back to me like a mathproblem I never solved. Perhaps it's because of my obsession
with trying to figure out how not to get hurt the next time. After
working for a living within the movement for over fourteen
years, mostly behind the scenes, I have chosen to withdraw fromit, maybe temporarily, to re-examine my beliefs and past actions.
Once I had thought that fighting bare-fisted for what I believe in
was the most honest way. I did this by revealing all of my weaknesses, expressing my doubts, and trying to name the problems
to get at what it was that felt disempowering. For years I worked
with people who differed with me and didn't care to understandthe power dynamics between us. Even when alliances were attempted through painst<iking discussions of these issues, ourtalking was more a catharsis than about actual strategies formaking substantial changes. Trying to form alliances in the
midst of those struggles brought me face to face with issues oftrust too familiar and deep to be able to separate the personalfrom the political. In the end, I drew so many lines of separationfrom these people that I backed myself out of the room.
What became clear was that the role I was playing within
white, middle-class, feminist structures was not working. The
things that I was saying, the things that I was doing, the sacrificesthat I was making for the political vision were not empowering
me. I was perpetuating patterns that were too scary to change. I
knew how to give my power over to white, middle-class women32 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

too well; to their education, to their language, to their structures,to their logic, to their visions, but I was not deriving power backfrom my work towards this political vision that we shared. I felt
isolated as a woman of color among white women, and I lacked
solid alliances with other women of color. At every critical juncture where I finally gave up on struggling with particular individuals or organizations, these circumstances played a devastating part in my eventual breakdowns.
I think my point of entry into the feminist movement set thestage for the hard lessons that I had to learn. I first entered into
the movement as a young person, fifteen years old, and as alesbian runaway from a working class, traditional Chinese
American immigrant family. Working in a feminist bookstore
collective enabled me to leave home, support myself, and identify as a lesbian feminist long before I could go to a lesbian bar
without a fake ID. I left my family and my culture to live by mypolitical beliefs, but except for the driving forces of anger andhunger, I did not have much backup for my new life. However
destructive they may have been, anger and hunger were my first
allies. I was angry because I felt powerless and alone. I had little
practical and emotional support and few options economic-ally.
I was hungry for understanding, warmth, and caring from people
who I believed were working toward the same changes in theworld that I was. I was young and vulnerable, struggling withlanguage issues, trying to bridge the gap between my life experience and that of the people around me who were older, far moreeducated academically and politically, and well-versed in feminist rhetoric. Within the collective, my age and lack of politicalexperience in other feminist or political organizations were used asbases for invalidating my issues and concerns. Except for myhard work and efforts to express my reality and feelings of being
oppressed to my co-workers, I was not equipped to fight thehand that fed me.
Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I worked at thebookstore during three separate periods with two different collectives. During that time, I sought allies who would $upport me
and my political vision of a feminist bookstore and literary

Spring/Summer 1994 33

movement which would be accessible to someone like myself: aworking class lesbian of color who was not college educated andwho had a hard time with language. I left the collective feelingangry and disillusioned when these efforts were met with antagonism and humiliation. I saw a struggle for power and control withina white, middle-class structure run by both white women andwomen of color who were using their various privileges to invalidate those of us who challenged that power structure whether wewere white, African American, Chicana, Asian, or middle-class,working-class or poverty-class. I learned that feminist identified
women were capable of vying for power and control within socalled feminist structures using psychological \Yarfare and feminist
rhetoric. People were isolated, invalidated, politically attacked,
and then driven out. One by one, dissenters left and formed
alliances as ex-collective members, but no action was taken to
confront the organization because the existing system did nothave any true accountability to its stated political objectives.
After this experience, I believed that hierarchies were morehonest structures to work within, given the inevitable power
imbalances within feminist structures. There existed a rank ofbosses and workers no matter how democratic an organization
tried to be. This concept was obvious to the workers but hard toaccept by the bosses. With this in mind, I decided to accept anoffice manager position with a small feminist publishing company. Surprisingly, within this acknowledged hierarchical, white,
middle-class feminist company, I felt for the first time, allianceswith white women, in terms of some version of a political vision
which reflected me: a feminist press publishing multi-culturalliterature by women. Despite my resistance to making myself
vulnerable in an all-white environment where I still felt disadvantaged by my issues with language, I was once again reinfectedwith a desire to work towards a political vision that I believed in.
This process of trying to work towards a political vision withwomen who were different in age, race, class, and lifestyle withina white, middle-class structure that did not yet embody its political vision of multi-culturalism, meant that I had to cope with thediscrepancies between the theory and the practice of that theory,34 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

and the limits of that practice. The efforts that were made toequalize power as much as possible were ultimately limited by
the structure and by my own inability to take power. In the latter
respect, I've taken full responsibility for my own limits andcount the experience as yet another stage of my development.
Although I have not fully resolved that entire experience, I
was left with some disturbing questions. First, as much as wetalk about the need for alliances between white women andwomen of color within the feminist movement, there is little saidof how that process actually happens. How do we engage witheach other on a daily basis when we have our own vested interests, and are hindered by all of our insecurities and limits as
individuals? Except for within organizations owned and run by
women of color, of which there are very few, there exist dynamics
of a power imbalance between white women and women ofcolor. The struggle to equalize power is a painful one. Honest
relationships that incorporate elements of love, friendship andtrust are not easy to develop or maintain. What happens whenthese alliances break down and the people who've worked hard
together towards a political vision feel that they have failed
themselves and each other? These are hardly the accounts that
one would hear at a conference, and yet it is often the outcome ofthe process of attempting to build alliances where there are
power imbalances.
My second question relates to a separate set of dynamics
between women of color and white women within white, middleclass, feminist structures. I am assuming here that most feminist
structures built by both working-class and middle-class womenof different racial and ethnic backgrounds will ultimately privilege white, middle-class women. Although women of color havealways worked within the feminist movement, we do not holdthe power in most feminist structures. We are recruited to workwithin these structures, but through our isolation, we are systematically set up to feel disempowered rather than empowered.
Where there are more than one of us within an organization,
white women feel threatened when we take our power seriously
and actively seek alliances with each other. Even when whiteSpring/Summer 1994 3S

women want to share their power and resources and believe thatto be a part of their role as allies, the reality of giving up theircontrol is problematic. They are too entrenched in political andcultural systems that give them unquestioned authority. Given
this context, what choices and chances do women of color reallyhave to empower ourselves within white feminist structures?
My last question has to do with the next level of engagement
between women of color and white women in their efforts toshare power within white feminist structures. In order to sharein the power and resources which white women hold, women ofcolor sometimes consciously make concessions that are not always spoken or acknowledged by either party. For example, we
may choose not to challenge white women's authority when it
may jeopardize our own position or set of privileges within thehierarchy. We may not say how we really feel even when werealize that we are not being treated as equals. In my discussions
with other women of color, it is often understood that they do notreally hold as much power as their titles may suggest. Although
this may be a tolerable or workable situation, the lack of honesty
allows for an illusion of the equal distribution of power. Where
there is more than one woman of color, the much-needed alliances between us can be undermined by this lack of honesty as
to who actually holds the power within an organization. Given
this context, how far can alliances between wqmen of color go
before we are forced to protect our own interests within a whitefeminist structure?
In the final analysis, the bottom line of how I evaluate any
potential ally is by her politics and how she tries to live out thosepolitics. Alliances are necessary relationships within any socialchange movement. No one can survive very long isolated andalienated from other people, whether it is within a movement, ajob, or even a room. My experiences thus far have taught me that
attempting any alliance is a risk that cannot be calculated. I takethese risks where acting out of my beliefs is the only way that I
can be true to my principles. For example, at my last job in a nonprofit women's agency headed by a woman of color and which
employed a majority of women of color workers, I was in a

36 sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesposition where I was willing to quit .my job, if necessary, in
support of a white, lesbian co-worker. Despite the risk of hardship from such a decision, I felt m.orally compelled in that particular situation to take such an action as her ally.
As one might expect from my brief account, very few alliances came out of those fourteen years of working in the feminist
movement, but the ones that have survived are very strong.
These are the people who really listened to me, who tried tounderstand, who told me how they really felt, and who believedthat I wa~ capable of learning from my mistakes. Some of them
are friends; many of them are not, but we continue to have amutual respect for one another. While I have made some lasting
political alliances with white, working-class women, my closer
alliances are with working-class women of color who work insocial change organizations. With them, I share an overall political vision for social change more complete and with fewer anddifferent contradictions than I share with white women. The
issues they are working on, such as immigrant and refugee rights,
domestic violence and literacy, reflect more closely my own
immediate concerns. Until I can find a way to re-enter the feminist movement in a more empowering way than before, I willcontinue to feel some discomfort around the issue of allianceswith other lesbian feminists . I will continue to grapple withdifficult questions, but the hard lessons learned have allowed
me to cope more constructively with the contradictions and limitations of any political movement. And this, I think, takes me offof the critically injured list.

Spring/Summer 1994 37

Mattie Richardson
Mattie Richardson is a Black, Latina, lesbian, feminist writer and activist. She currently lives in Albany, New York.

Spice
By the time I figured out what was really going on, I had alreadygiven myself over to her. I handed myself over to a white girl who
had never seen me at all. I mean, she didn't have any trouble
visually seeing me, she just couldn't bring 'herself to visualize
my existence.
'What does it feel like being like you are?/I I asked Jen Cutter,
who at the time was the big dyke on campus. She could tell I didn't
know any better than to say something like that. Jen just laughed,leaned over to me and whispered, "I could always show you./I
I was simultaneously scared out of my mind and desperately
in love. Sporting her newly shorn dykely haircut and newly
acquired black leather motorcycle jacket, she was the essence oflesbian for me; in fact, Jen was the first out lesbian I ever met.
This was my first year in college and I had discovered, to mysurprise, that I was attracted to women. I decided not to tell anyone until I could find one to ask what it is lesbians do, anyway.
Jen taught me about everything that lesbians did. From her
I was introduced to the world of dyke culture and history. She
gave me a stack of the required reading to become a full-fledged
lesbian. Fortunately, this reading included a few Black lesbians
like myself. The college I went to was virtually all-white in a
predOminantly white New England town. If there were otherBlack people who were queer, I didn't know about them growing
up and they were not visible on campus.
Jen introduced me to other out white lesbians on campus, all
six of them. Along with Jen, they formed a small cadre of radical
activist lesbians. Their goal was to push the few existing progressive campus organizations further left. I joined their ranks with
Jen. I borrowed a friend's leather jacket, smoked Camels, andlearned how to discuss Foucault and Fanon in diners for hours.

38 sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesI felt like I was with people who had a better grip on politicalrealities . I felt that not only was I amo'n g friends, but real allies.
I thought Jen knew almost everything. She had traveled extensively and her parents worked for a moderate-to-liberal major magazine. Their assignments took them all over the world and sometimes Jen would get to go with them. As a result, she had an imp res- _sive collection of craftwork from India, Brazil, SenegaL .., anywhere her parents went without her they brought back a present. We
spent the weekends in her room making love and talking. I told hereverything about my life. I trusted her completely.
We broke up one wintery Sunday afternoon after we had
spent the weekend hanging out in her room. It was bitterly coldoutside but sunny so that the room was filled with a pale, blanching light. It made all of her souvenirs look odd and dull. She
picked up her camera and started snapping pictures of me in mypajamas in various silly poses. We were both laughing and having fun. After taking the pictures for a while, she laughed out
loud to herself. It wasn't until I pressed her for the joke that she
told me. It had suddenly occurred to her that I matched the room.
I gave it extra flavor. I was the spice.

Spring/Summer 1994 39

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Hadas Weiss
Interviewed in Oakland, CA
December I, 1993

Hadas Weiss is a Jewish woman of Ashkenazi descent. She's a fat, lesbian
separatist wi th a poverty-class background. She's also an attorney and ishoping to open a private practice in San Francisco in the near future.
There are two categories of allies: there's the situation where mypeople have been and continue to be abusers and I need to be anally to the Lesbians who have been the target of the cruelty; andthere are places where my people and I have been the target of thecruelty. Of course, any given Lesbian usually embodies many
identities. A middle-class Lesbian of Color may be an ally to me
in terms of classism and I may be an ally to her in terms of racism.

40 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

An ally is someone who does the . work. Allies are not thesame as friends. If a woman of Color reaches out to me, she mightwant me to be her ally and I don't have the permission to assume
the familiarity of a friendship unless I'm told otherwise. Ally
work minimally entails a conscious examination of one's behavior and words. If I'm going to claim to be an ally to Lesbians ofColor, I must listen and read. If a Lesbian of Color goes out of her
way to educate me, I take that opportunity very seriously. If there
is some work that needs to be done, work that I can do, I do it.
When SW put out a call for submissions on this issue, aGerman lesbian (who I will call Katerina) approached me andasked if I was willing to do an article with her on the issue ofGerman-Jewish alliances. I was uncomfortable doing the article
because I was not clear about the issue in general, and because
I thought the two of us needed to do a lot more work before we
considered ourselves allies. At that point we had known eachother for a few months.
My parents are Holocaust survivors. They never talked aboutit, partly as a way of protecting us from it. So I've had to find out
about what happened myself. My aunt and uncle are planning totake their family and me to the camps and to the places they lived
before the war. So I feel this extra pressure to educate myself inorder to make the trip more meaningful. I wanted to talk withGerman Lesbians, to find out what t,hey learned at home and at
school about the Holocaust. Also, the magnitude of the cruelty is
so incomprehensible and I thought that talking about it would
help me make sense of it.
I wanted to establish an allyship with a German lesbian ona very individual basis. I wanted to ask her, "Who are you?
Where do come from? What do you know about this?" I consciously chose Katerina because, like me, she is a separatist andfrom a poverty class background. The first time we met socially,
she flat out asked me how I felt about spending time with aGerman lesbian. I was so relieved to hear her acknowledge ourdifference.
One of the other reasons that I so wanted to forge an alliancewith a German lesbian is because I assumed she would have an

Spring/Summer 1994 41

awareness of anti-Semitism. In this country most Jews are white,and therefore automatically privileged. Also, anti-semitism is at
an historical low. This is a relatively good time for Jews, and a
relatively good place for Jews to be. So it is hard for people in thiscountry to understand and appreciate the pain. Perhaps I was mistaken assuming that a German lesbian who is semi-conscious
would have to know about just how vicious anti-semitism is. So
in a bizarre way, I thought I was one step ahead with a German
woman. At least she would know it as an issue.
After we spent substantial social time together and talked formany hours about many difficult issues (not on the same day), I
asked Katerina to go see a Holocaust film with me (and 300 otherJews). I needed her to get a sense of the collective grief. This was
her responsibility. This was her ally work.
Katerina came to the film and it was an absolutely hellish
experience. All kinds of emotions raged through me. I was embarrassed to introduce her to my Jewish Lesbian friends; I thought
they would hate me for bringing lithe enemy" into our midst.
After all, we were there to mourn the atrocities committed against
us by her people. I was afraid for her physical safety, afraid someone would hear her German accent and attack her, unlikely asthat would be. Then I felt ridiculous for wanting to protect her.
I tried to focus on the film and become fully immersed in it withmy people. But there she was, a constant and symbolic reminderthat I was not safe.
But I wanted her to be there. And in some ways I wanted her
to be there because I wanted to shove it in her face, even knowing
she had no control over the legacy she inherited, knowing I could
only hold her accountable for the way she dealt with this legacy.
I can't even remember what film we saw. Afterwards, we went toa cafe, held hands and sobbed. There was nothing to say, really.
Here we were, the two of us from opposite sides of the fence,meeting 50 years later because we were Lesbians. Just trying to
do something with the history we both inherited. Just looking at
each other and crying.
I've talked with my Jewish friends about this and to this day
I don't fully understand what motivated me to seek an allyship42 si nister wisdom #52 - Allies

with a German Lesbian. At some level.! was hoping that it would
get me beyond the personal pain of knowing how 6,000,000 of mypeople - including my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins- were killed.
The forged alliance didn't really last. I'm not sure if thereason it didn't work in the long term has much to do with alli- ance building or the strength of certain alliances. It didn't last
mostly because of our personality differences and because wewere too easily wounded by every mistake we made in theprocess.
I have an example of a Lesbian who has been my ally. Karinis a white German lesbian. She is my next-door neighbor and I
consider her an ally and a friend. She asks me questions whichshow she has done her homework. Very soon after I moved in, we
passed each other in the hall. After making casual conversation
Karin told me she was expecting two German visitors for a few
days and asked me if I would be OK with it. She understood thatthree Germans passing by my door several times a day or three
Germans talking and laughing in German five feet from myhome space could be an issue. This made my day. I mean she
hardly knew me and had no way of knowing how I would
respond. It made a big difference to me. It warmed me to her. Me
and another Jewish womon were going to have a ceremony tohonor and name Karin as an official Jewish ally and Karin's
refusal to do it made me more aware that she deserved that title.

Spring/Summer 1994 43

Akiba Onada-Sikwoia
Interviewed in Oakland, CA
December 2, 1993

Akiba Onada-Sikwoia is a 51 year old black womon of African, Native
American and Irish ancestry. She is an artist and a poet, a warrior anda healer, amazed, honored and grateful to have lived to be 51.

I learned at a very young age that, emotionally, I was on my own- something that I've spent most of my life trying to come toterms with. As a child I felt isolated in my family because of mydifference and my abuse. As a matter of fact, I felt that way
around most people, so having allies and friends became very
important to me. I even used to steal money from my stepfather
to buy candy for other kids at school because I thought it mightbring me friends.
By the time I was fifteen I was in my rebel warrior stance. I
had friends but very few allies. Mostly because I couldn't reallytell people who I was - I was being battered, something I wasvery ashamed of, consequently I got very little support because
I did not talk about my real self to most people.
I came out as a dyke when I was fifteen, that was thirty-six
years ago. My first lover was my "best" friend and a real ally. We
had the same fierceness. She actually confronted my mother who was my batterer - for calling me a whore and a slut. It wasthat same year that I found the strength to hit my mother back.
An ally is someone who has my back. Who will not leave meout there alone because they get scared. Certainly, I've had numerous allies, many have supported me in my life or else I would
probably not be here today. Some of these people I don't evenknow, but their deeds have created paths for me to travel on.
They have been all colors and sexes - heterosexual, homosexualand bisexual. An ally may not always be my friend, but thosewhom I call friends, I need to be my allies. One of my biggest
errors has been to try to make my allies my friends and to expectthat my friends will always be my ally.

44 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

A person is my ally when we both share the same perspectiveof a particular reality, and can make a commitment to take a stancefor that reality. I need to know that~I can count on the people that I
spend my energy with. Relationships are very big commitments
for me. There are people I love but I know that they don't know
how to be allies for me, therefore our friendship is limited. .
I've also learned I need people that I align myself with torecognize their personal power, have integrity, take responsibility for their power and the ways they choose to use it. After yearsof struggle, I now understand that I have personal power and if
people in my life have not come to acknowledge their own power
there's a strong chance I'll be treated as the powerful one (or thestrong one, etc.) in the relationship and thus bear too much
responsibility. Many times I've been with people who were indenial of their power and therefore made me the powerful one.
I've been on both ends of this dynamic and it doesn't work. I
need balance, I also need people to be conscious of the way they
use their power. And equally important I need the people whom
I align myself with to have a strong sense of spirit in their lives.
I am an Oya child, a catalyst, like the center of the tornado
there is always a lot going on around me. Truth is very important
to me and if I'm not around people who recognize their worth,people who are willing to live their truth then I can end up being
the problem - the cause.
I haven't always felt this way. It's been a process. Most of mylife I felt like the only victim in town because I, like many of us(especially as a Black two-spirited womon), have been a constanttarget for violence, hatred and oppression.
I learned from my childhood that in order to control the pain
I was experiencing, I needed to be a "good girl." Of course, I wasnever a "good girl" (otherwise there would have been no excuse
to beat me) but I tried. I was always striving and in a relationshipwith anger and pain at home, busy trying to prove my love andreading from my environment that I wasn't worthy - that no one
would love me just as I was. I've brought all of these dynamics
to my relationships. Truly in the past I've compromised myself
many times for what I thought was acceptance. Yet I've also been

Spring/Summer 1994 45

an ally and friend to many people because of my commitment to
my truth. Now I am in a more healthy place emotionally. I'm not
as needy but I am so much more selective.
There is also the issue of trust. I trust people to be who they
say they are until I learn how they act, allies are those who live
their truth. But the person that I really have to trust is myself can I take care of myself in relationship with this person? Sometimes I choose to be in denial about what I discover in otherpeople (that's when I'm in my "they'll like me so much thatthey'll change" - you know, the "1 can fix it syndrome"). This
choice not to acknowledge what I feel has indeed been emotionally costly because my expectations of what-another person could
give have been based on my fantasy. Often I've thought I had totake what I could get - it's been hard learning how to take careof myself in a healthy way in such an unhealthy world, community, family.
The lesbian community has been no different than any othercommunity in terms of betrayal, most of my experiences of personal betrayal have been with wimmin. Amongst my black sisters and other sisters of color, class and difference has always
been an issue, but we don't really talk about that. And I've
certainly entertained the fantasy that just because we are peopleof color and especially my black sisters - due to our common
oppression - we should be allies, but oppression is no place toform one's expectation of camaraderie. It is something, but it
alone has never held me up. We are from so many different
cultures and have used our power many times in not such positive ways in order to survive. And amongst white wimmin,
racism is usually always an issue and one that I must say I am sickand tired of having to confront.
Ultimately, I've learned that spirit and myself are my greatest
allies. Spirit has carried me through my loneliest hours and as I
grow I realize that my commitment to myself and my truth is themost important commitment I can make. I find that when I startdepending on another human too much I get disappointed . So
far no one person has ever been able to fulfill all my needs although some wimmin have certainly tried. My needs and my46 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

responses in situations are relative to who I am and where I comefrom. Therefore, my needs in any given moment are constantly
changing. Today, I recognize how fortunate I am to be loved andcherished by the incredible and powerful wimmin in my life
today. I am very grateful. So in the final analysis all I can ask foris that people show up in the best way that they can and that I do
the same.

Spring/Summer 1994 47

Gloria E. AnzalduaInterviewed in Santa Cruz, CA
November 26, 1993

Gloria E. Anzaldua is a Chicana, was born and raised in Texas but
considers herselfa Californian as well. She just had her 51st birthday andis the author/editor of two Aunt Lute Books: Borderlands/La Frontera
and Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras. She is also the coeditor of This Bridge Called My Back from Kitchen Table Women ofColor Press.
Becoming allies means helping each other ~eal. It can be hard to
expose yourself and your wounds to a stranger who could be anally or an enemy. But if you and I were to do good alliance work
together, be good allies to each other, I would have to expose mywounds to you and you would have to expose your wounds to me
and then we could start from a place of openness. During ouralliance work, doors will close and we'll have to open them up
again. People who engage in alliances and are working towardcertain goals want to keep their personal feelings out of it, but
you can't. You have to work out your personal problems while
you are working out the problems of this particular communityor this particular culture.
When you are doing alliance work it is very important to say
who you are. For example, I am a Chicana, Mexicana, dyke,
whatever. I come from a campesina background but I have now
put one foot into middle-classness. I belong to the inteligencia, theintelligence class, the artistic class as an artist, and I am speaking
today to you as all these people, but primarily as a Chicana or asa dyke, etc. You must situate yourself and tell what your stanceis on particular things, so other allies know exactly where you arecoming from. And they can later say, "Oh you say that you aretalking from a working-class perspective but you have a house,
you have a car, you have these privileges, you are a professor, ora salaried publisher, a privileged writer, etc." Allies might challenge some of your positions as a first step in finding out whether

48 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

you are a real potential ally. Then you can get a sense of whether
you can trust this person or not. And you go with your gut
feeling. You go with how you feel, because sometimes they will
say all the politically correct rhetoric, but you just know that they
are trying to put one over on you .

......

Spring/Summer 1994 49

I have edited three books, This Bridge Called My Back, Hacienda
Caras, and Signs: Theorizing Lesbian Experience. In the first two
books I consider anthologizing as my way of making allianceswith women of color. In Signs it was more (or less) white women
wanting to make alliances with lesbians of color. Many lesbiansof color I asked to submit work didn't, because they didn't trust
Signs because they know it to be elitist, esoteric and racist.
In the books that other people anthologize me in, some editors are very genuine and want to diversify their community.
Then there are the anthologizers that call on me so that dykes ofcolor will not call them and say, "You have one contributor ofcolor and ninety white cOI)tributors, this is racist!" So they attempt to tokenize me, or they try to pull a fast one on theirreaders, by tokenizing in general. Some of my work is hard toassimilate and I consider assimilation in white culture like anamoeba trying to swallow me. But it is hard for them to assimilate me in that manner because of language and because of theway that I write. They can ignore some issues that I bring out, but
because of my writing style, there are things they must confront.
I don't write like a white person. I don't write like an academic
or follow those rules. I break them.
If they can't assimilate my writing what they try and do is
assimilate me, by tokenizing me. They bring me into their book,or into their conference, or into their alliance in a way that will
acknowledge the easy stuff I raise, but ignore the more dangerous stuff. They try to do this to me all the time, so then I have to
respond back, either on the phone or in a letter, and say, why?
One anthology that asked for my work was called Growing Up
Latino. Before I agreed to publish in it, I had this whole dialogue
with one of the editors, and talked about naming the book Latino
and not Chicano. I asked "How many Chicanos/Chicanas are inyour book? How many are Latina and how do they identify
themselves?" Once the magazine New Chicano Writing asked me
to sit on their board. I called and voiced my objections to theeditor before I agreed to join: I objected having Chicano writers
but not Chicana in the title, and furthermore told them that the
groundbreaking writing being done in the Chicano/Chicana

SO sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

community was by women. I also objected to their project only
accepting work written in English. So the editor went horne andthought about the issues and later called me and said, "I'vechanged the title of the magazine to New Chicana/ Chicano writing, and people can write in Spanish, they can do bilingual, andthey can do Tex Mex." Then I felt like the editor was open to me, and I agreed to be on their editorial board .

......
The biggest risk in forming alliances is betrayal. When you
are betrayed you feel shitty. When I have been betrayed I havefelt stupid, like why did I trust this person and allow this person
to stab me in the back, it's all my fault, you know the victim
syndrome. Betrayal, especially with Chicanas, betrayal is a big
thing, because we were betrayed as women, as Indians, as aminority in this country, everything. We have been stabbed in theback by all of these various people. And betrayal makes you feellike less of a person, you feel shame, it reduces your self-esteem.
It is politically deadening and dangerous, it's disempowering.
When you lose your self-esteem you no longer trust yourself tomake value judgments about other people, you lose confidence
in yourself and your values. When a whole person is slowly
destroyed, and this is what women of color are suffering from,their personhood is destroyed .
......
At first I felt really good belonging to the lesbian community,
even though it was mostly white. It made me feel like where I
had no horne, I now had a new one. But after two or three or four
years, I started looking at power, and who had power and who
was trying to define for me what I was as a Chicana lesbian. I
realized how my voice was silent and how my history was ignored and that drove me into looking at my roots, my queer roots
in my own culture. I had to get a positive sense of being queer
from my culture, not just from the white culture. Now I am in aplace where I can look at both the white lesbian community andmy own culture that is only beginning to have groups of lesbians
organizing. Ellas San Antionio is a group of Chicana dykes, Amigas

Spring/Summer 1994 Sl

y Que, in Houston and Austin. But they were not in place when
I was coming out. Chicana dyke organizations are just now
coming into their power.
Now I look at my culture and white culture and the wholeplanet. I look at other nationalities and how they deal with theirqueer people, I'm getting a global perspective on being a queer
person. And sometimes I feel very comfortable with a bunch ofwhite dykes and other times I feel totally invisible, ignored. I
feel that they only see the queer part of me. They don't see theChicana part of me or the working class part of me. As long as I
leave my class and culture outside the door when I enter a room
full of white dykes I am okay, but if I bring-in my race or class,then my role as educator starts .

•••I think that most white dykes really want a community thatis diversified. And sometimes they want it so badly that theywant to put everybody under this queer umbrella and say we are
all in this together and we are all equal. But we are not equal. In
their thirst and hunger for this diversity the issues of class andrace are issues that they don't even want to examine, because
they feel like they're divisive. So they are hungry for being
politically correct and having women of color in their organizations, in their syllabi, and as performers, singers, writers andlovers. But a lot of times in order to bring us under the queer
umbrella they will ignore or collapse the differences, not reallydeal with the issues. When it comes down to the numbers of who
has power or how many dykes of color are getting in this anthology and how many don't - in terms of the real work, they fail.
I mean the ideas are good, like the greater numbers/the greater
strength kind of thing but they want us to leave our race and ourclass in the check room when we enter their space .

•••As a group, I think dykes are more progressively politicalthan any other group because of feminism, and because of being(at least) doubly oppressed. Because they have been oppressedas dykes, I believe white lesbians are more apt to recognize the52 sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesoppression of women of color. So they have a true wanting ofmulti-cultural groups. And there are always the false ones ofcourse, there are always the oneS that do want it to be white. But
there is some honest motivation about wanting to be allies andin this they still have a lot of work to do. For example, one of thethings they often don't contend with is the unconscious motiva-tion of doing it out of guilt. But I am very hopeful and I think that
I am one of the very few people. I think that most people of myage or younger have been burned out and disillusioned and feellike it's the pits right now. Much younger people than me haveno hope, do not see alliances working, do not see white people
reaching out or doing their work, and do not see the possibilityof white people changing perspectives. Or allowing change tocome into their lives, but I do.

Voices Calling Across the Borderlines
acrylic on canvas, 24" x 30"

TarasconSpring/Summer 1994 53

Barbara Smith
Barbara Smith is a Black, lesbian, feminist activist and writer. She was
aco-founder of the Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist group in
Boston which did organizing from 1974-1980. She is co-founder andcurrent publisher of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the only U.S .
publisher for women of color. She lives in Albany, New York and is amember of the Feminist Action Network, a multi-racial group of lesbian,bisexual and heterosexual women who have been organizing against
racism and homophobia since 1989.

54 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

The Tip Of The Iceberg.
Before discussing how white lesbians can be allies to me as aBlack lesbian, I first need to talk a~out what racism is and how
it works. From the moment this continent was colonized, racismhas been fundamental to this country's functioning on every
level. To this day, racism is systematically institutionalized inevery aspect of the United States' political, economic and social
life. Racism negatively affects the day to day lives of people ofcolor in both devastating and "petty" ways, ranging from whether
we grow up in poverty and die years earlier than whites towhether we will be waited on promptly and courteously whenever we enter a restaurant or a store.
There were two crucial events, directly tied to racism, that
insured this country's successful European settlement. The firstwas the wholesale theft of the land itself from the original inhabitants, the Native peoples, a process accomplished through war
and other acts of genocide. The second was the importation of
millions of Africans to work as slaves. The United States is built
upon stolen land and stolen labor.
For racism to serve its essential purpose, which was and is the
exploitation of people of color in order to maintain white economic and political power, i.e. white supremacy, a racist ideology
also had to be put in place. Vicious stereotypes based upon the
supposed inferiority of sub-human Indian and African "savages" were created in order to justify policies and acts that would
otherwise be viewed as criminally inhumane. Racist ideology,
attitudes and beliefs, reinforced by segregation and discrimination, enable institutionalized racism to perpetuate itself.
Racism is not primarily a set of negative attitudes or behaviors on the part of individual whites. These negative attitudes
and behaviors are grievous and sometimes fatal, but they are in fact
symptoms of a system whose purpose is not merely to make peopleof color feel badly, but to maintain white power and control.
Of course there have always been people of color who haveresisted white rule in every way we could. The abolition of

Spring/Summer 1994 SS

slavery, the destruction of legal segregation, our ongoing movements that fight against racism, our very physical survival are all
testaments to the resistance of people of color.
The concept of resistance brings me to how white lesbians (oranyone who is white) can be an ally to me as a Black person, awoman, and a lesbian. And that is to do political organizing withthe ultimate goal of destroying the institutionalized, structural
racism that oppresses all people of color, including Black lesbians.
As a socialist I believe that racism will only be destroyed whencapitalism is also destroyed, which means it will be a long struggle.
However, there are various kinds of grassroots organizing thatchallenge the state which we can participate in, right now.
I consider white lesbians to be allies who do actual organizing
to dismantle institutionalized racism in the society as a whole.
Having a "safe space" within the lesbian community whereconcerned white lesbians might treat me as if I were human is all
well and good, but it won't help at all when I am in my car and getpulled over by a cop who decides to crack my head open because I
am black. What would help would be for white lesbians toorganize against police brutality, which is occurring in epidemic
proportions against different groups of people of color all overthe country. There are countless other issues to which anti-racist
white lesbians can bring their intelligence, activism and support.
Doing anti-racist organizing does not mean that one has tostop organizing against homophobia and sexism, as demonstrated by the multi-issued political practice of lesbian feministsof color. Indeed, given how linked all the systems of oppression
are, organizing around what may seem to be one issue should
quickly lead to work around related ones. For example, lesbians
and gays have a history of being mistreated by the police, so
working against police brutality has direct positive consequences
for our lives. Opposing the Christian right wing's homophobic
campaigns logically necessitates opposing their assaults on
Women's reproductive freedom, their racist efforts to instituteschool vouchers, and their anti-immigration initiatives.
Of course I want white lesbians to treat me like a humanbeing and there have been too many instances in the last twenty56 sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesyears when they have not. I also wQuld like white lesbians toknow about and respect my culture and history. But most of all
I need for white lesbians to d@ work toward eradicating theoppression that undermines the lives of all people of color including mine. The white lesbians who have been friends, allies,
and in some cases family to me for many years all do practical .
political work to end racism in this country. One aspect of thatwork is challenging racism in lesbian contexts, but limiting
one's activities to lesbian settings is to confront just the tip of theiceberg. As I wrote several years ago, I don't live in the women's
movement, I live on the streets of North America.
The only way oppressed groups' situations ever change inreal life as opposed to in theory is through activism. Talk doesn't
do it, trainings don't do it, books don't do it, pleasant attitudes
don't do it. Organizing does. The white lesbian allies I candepend upon are those who are allies in struggle.

Brooms and well-worn shoes
Uganda, Africa, 1993

Jean Weisinger

Spring/Summer 1994 57

Judith K. Witherow

Are You A Gypsy
It's that timeof year again
when sun filled days
color me and flowers
With high cheek bones
and all the rest,
folks can't quite
pigeonhole me.
Being a mixed blood
Native American
doesn't help those who want
to discriminate knowingly.
But sure as bucks
lose their velvet, I'm often asked"Are you a Gypsy?"
If I were I would be

proud to say so,
but thank you justthe brazen bigot same.

58 sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesLisa Huebner

TraitorYou

with your white lily smile
mist of intolerance
barelyjust barely
sweeping over yourclear
blue eyes.
Youwith your
calm
level
tone
in your voicehiding contempt
mockerymasked as patience.
Youwith your never tornnever crumpled
crisp clean
dollar bills
buying owning
the luxury of expectation
never questioning
because You don't have to.
Why do You have to
disgust me so?
Like the immediacy
and the normalcy

Spring/Summer 1994 59

of sharp piercing pain
lessening
resigning to a
slow
dull
thud, yetnever quite ceasing to exist.
Go ahead
Stay safein your sweet ivory towerhigh above
those of us
who must
rise above
circums tancesmost likely
caused byYou.

60 sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesCaryatis Cardea

A Different Set of Values~ November 28th, 1993, at Mama Bears Bookstore in Oakland;
California, I participated in a reading by contributors to the
newly-released anthology, Lesbian Culture, edited by Julia
Penelope and Susan Wolfe. I wrote a piece specifically for thereading, which we are publishing here. I have written a preface
to give the readers a context and an epilogue explaining what
happened afterward at the bookstore, and outlining the reaction
since then. We are also including, with her permission, one of theletters I have received from Julia Penelope since that date, and as
her comments refer more to my unofficial or private remarks thatday than to the substance of my speech, I have tried to give thecontext for them also.
PrefaceTwo years ago, I gave permission to Julia Penelope and Susan
Wolfe to reprint some work of mine in their upcoming anthology,
Lesbian Culture. As the book neared completion, a friend of mine
happened to mention that a piece of hers was coming out in
another anthology. She had granted permission, she told me, only
if the editors assured her the book would be culturally diverse.
I was exasperated that I had not felt similarly compelled to becertain that I was not participating in a white-dominated publication, to recognize how my white privilege had kept me, once
again, from asking the questions which were a matter of survival
for my friend, who is a lesbian of color.
A few weeks later, my copy of the Lesbian Culture anthology
came in the mail. From the cover to the artwork to the level ofrepresentation, the book is overwhelmingly white. My lover,Leslie, and I decided to do an actual count. Through self-descriptions in the contributors' notes, things mentioned in the written
work, pictures and double-checking the places where the pieces
had originally appeared, we were able to ascertain only 14 dykes

Spring/Summer 1994 61

of color in the volume, leaving the possibility that it was as muchas 75% white.
I was trying to figure out what I could do that would sufficiently counter the racism of my appearance here when I got
another letter from Julia, inviting me to participate in local readings of the anthology. I decided to attend, but to make a publicstatement owning the privilege from which I had assumed thatsomeone else would be responsible for assuring thorough representation of lesbians of color and lack of oppressive content.
I was the fifth of the contributing authors to read. I would rather
have gone first, before the celebratory aspect built up. When I got
to the stage, I made some off-the-cuff remarks, as I always dowhile I adjust the microphone and settle my nerves. In this vein,
I responded to a comment from Julia'S introduction that every
self-respecting womon hates her doctor. I said, Although I ama self-respecting womon, I don't hate my doctor. She's a lesbian
who's here in the audience, and I feel lucky to have had the careshe's been giving me for over ten years." (I mention this only tomake sense of the P.S. to Julia'S letter.)Since the event, one factual error and one instance of myprivilege at work even in the remarks I read at the bookstore
have been pointed out to me. The factual error is corrected in afootnote within the text.
The exercise of privilege was in my description of the lesbianon the cover. It is a very famous picture with which I was familiar,
though I didn't know who took the picture or who was in it. I
now know that it is a self-portrait by JEB, a Jewish lesbian
photographer (and photographer of lesbians) of some renown.
My comments regarding the cover have to do with the concept of marginalization. If I had it to do again - and I guess thisis the point when I sort of do - I would, among my otherremarks, take notice of what it means to Jewish lesbians, who
cannot take their inclusion in lesbian culture for granted, to havefound one of themselves on the cover. It was a moment of someconsiderable gladness and recognition for many of my friends,
and I plowed past that on my way to another point. Not knowing
JEB's identity, I indicated that the dyke in the picture was someII

62

sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesone absolutely not marginalized, ther~by leaving the many dykes
who recognized JEB (or recognized that she was Jewish, even if
they didn't know her) even further marginalized. The points
about the cover are that no one person can represent the conceptof "lesbian," and that only white-skinned dykes have even been
considered for the role.
I have added to the text of the speech the page numbers of theitems I referred to that day, and footnoted certain comments thatwould make no sense out of the context of the bookstore reading.
N one of the footnotes were read that day. I have titled this version after a quote from an essay by Lee Evans, originally published in Sinister Wisdom, and reprinted in Lesbian Culture.
The point of Lesbian community is to separate fromthe status quo and base our connections on a different
set of values.
These explanations and qualifications being made, what
follows is what I read at Mama Bears.
Response to Lesbian Culture
read at Mama Bears Bookstore, Oakland, CA
November 28, 1993
I've been thinking a great deal lately about the ways thatwhite Lesbians protect each other against the consequences ofour racism. We say that we know we are all racist, but, whenchallenged, we focus on how offended we are by the accusation,or how it was made. By such means, racism continues and thrives
in our communities. When I am racist in the presence of anotherwhite Dyke, I implicitly trust her lack of real outrage, I rely on
her racism to allow mine to continue.
When Julia and Susan asked for permission to include mywork in this volume, I admit to having felt flattered. The notionthat all my trouble-making had actually earned me a place in thehistory of Lesbian culture was seductive. Mostly, I perceive myself
as a thorn in the side of my community: a role with which, as a
Scorpio, I am quite comfortable. Now, the book is out, and I am
not flattered, because it is not OK with me to be in a book of 92
Lesbian contributors, with only 14 Lesbians of color that I canSpring/Summer 1994 63

identify; a book in which Lesbians of Asian, Native Americanand Latina descent altogether total six, but I can find 39 Lesbians
whom I know to be white Gentile.
How could the editors have come to believe that I would
approve of the makeup of this book? That's easy. When I was
asked for material for this book, I didn't ask if it would be
representative of old Dykes, fat Dykes, young Dykes, disabled
Dykes, Dykes of color, Jewish Dykes: I didn't ask anything. I
assumed that my invitation to participate was a move towardclass diversity. But I didn't ask. Well, that's privilege at work. I
gave them every right to believe that this book would be acceptable to me. This book is not acceptable to rp.e.
So, I've decided that my objection to this book, and to myparticipation must be made public. Private consultations between white Lesbians - and they do take place - just aren't
accomplishing enough. Not if a book which may be as much as
75% white can be released in 1993, twenty years into this movement, and be titled Lesbian Culture. It doesn't matter that this is ananthology. Lesbians have very limited access to publishing. This
is not one of dozens which will appear. And if it were, what are
we suggesting, separate but equal? The whole wide world, thewhole wild world of Dykedom goes steadily about its businessof changing the world while too many of us who are white
Lesbians rest complacently within our skin privilege, believingthat we are all there is to being Lesbian. Two decades of being soeasy on one another has led us, collectively, to this book.
.Well, what is wrong with this book?
92 contributors
1 of Asian descent
3 Latina
2 Native American
8 African American, including Audre Lorde & Pat Parker
10 Jewish
39 white gentile l
1 The SW editorial group has pointed out to me that I added up who is in thebook and never even mentioned that some folks go by with no representation
whatsoever. Dykes of Arab descent, they note, are entirely absent.

64 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

What else is wrong?
.
The cover has a white womon on it. That should be enoughright there. She stands under a. roadside sign reading, ''Dyke.''
She seems confident that this describes her and that everyone
seeing the photograph will get it. This picture, of a young Lesbian, thin, white, apparently able-bodied and possibly class,privileged (I'm taking a shot in the dark here, because very few
of us get even teeth otherwise) delivers one message: This is
Dyke. We use the term "marginalize" in our politics, but this iswhat it really means. You define Dyke as thin, young and white
and that image is placed at the center of Lesbian consciousness,at the center of our consciousness of what is Lesbian, with everyone possessing other characteristics pushed toward the margins.
They aren't Dykes, they're Black Dykes, or fat Dykes, or old
Dykes. This cover alone marginalizes Lesbians of color (as well
as disabled or fat or old Lesbians).
What else is wrong? A Lesbian fantasy about constructing anipple atop a mesa in Australia called Ayer's Rock (p. 218), whichjust happens to be a site sacred to the indigenous people of color.
After years of struggle, the Aborigines just won back the right tokeep white people from climbing all over it, and here, a white
Dyke from the U.S. is having imperialist daydreams in print about
scaling it and altering it in the name of "the leaping Lesbians." 2
More? A character in a play protests being married off by her
author. Well, certainly, our Lesbian sensibilities revolt at such athought, but she objects mostly because he is (and I quote) "fat, and 'old, and poor ... and he can't even speak good English." (p. 169)
You see, this is not a mere difference of opinion about who
should and should not have been included. But I do question thepriorities honored here. If there was only room to discuss someauthors, while excerpting others, couldn't we have included
Paula Gunn Allen and Gloria Anzaldua, and just mentioned
Isabel Miller and Radclyffe Hall. Personally, I do not find myself

2 A womon who spoke to me after the reading said she had just corne from
Australia, where the land struggle continues and tourists still climb the Rock,though some limited areas are now restricted.

Spring/Summer 1994 65

or my history in the lives of ultra-rich white womyn from the U.S.
and Britain, nor in stories like The Well of Loneliness, wherein
the main character's greatest tragedy is that the world won't let
her have her very own cute little straight blonde girl, like themen get to do. I disavow Radclyffe Hall as a foremother, andfrankly, I don't think she'd be too eager to claim me as herdescendant, either.
And there's still more. A rap lyric by two white womyn (p.
331), despite the poem by an African American Lesbian (p. 461)
protesting the plagiarism that occurs when white womyn use
Black modes of expression. At least two sexualized references tochildren (pp. 277, 334), a relentless ridicule of the Asian foods
commonly eaten by Lesbian vegetarians (pp. 342, 347,349,352),
with no notice taken of the implicit racism. It just isn't appropriate for a white U.S. Dyke to refer to tofu as "icky, weirdo food."(p. 347) It is Asian food. And what is the word "weirdo" evendoing here? Slavery (p. 171) and genocide (p. 190) used as metaphors, classism (p. 344, all of The Well of Loneliness and all ofPatience and Sarah), womyn disliked by certain authors referred
to as "babe" and even "bitch." (p. 302) This book is wrong.
Mama Bears' review recommends that we keep this bookhandy in our homes and "wander through its atmosphere."3 Ilove Lesbians, and I love history, and I love Lesbian history andliterature and culture. But I tried wandering here, and I justcouldn't breathe. I'm sure there are arguments that can and will
be presented to justify the choices made in this book. I'm equallysure that I will be reprimanded for making this critique public.
But the Introduction to this book recommends being self-critical, and acknowledges that without our controversies "our communities could not change." (p. 19) Even so, the Michigan festival is covered extensively in this section, although the struggles
of disabled Lesbians for accommodation, the overt discrimination against fat Lesbians, the outright exclusion of Lesbians ofcolor from the stage and, consequently, from the audience, for
years and years is never mentioned.
But the worst single indictment of racism against this book
3 Mama Bears News 'N' Notes

66 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

is on page 397. A photograph of Sue Fink accompanying aninterview with her. A half-page photo of Sue wearing a T-shirt
which reads "Come to Camp Nowanaweenee, with Sue Fink,"
the words inscribed around a circle, within which is a drawing ofa young womon wearing braids and a headband with a feather.
I'm afraid if I begin to talk about this, I will start screaming. For
one thing, this community does not need me, personally, to tellthem what's wrong with this. Even the editors of this book didn't
need me to tell them. They only needed to turn to page 465 of
their own book, where Chrystos, a Native American Lesbian
poet, states, "I Am Not Your Princess." Bypassing the class ism ofassuming that everyone can relate to a camp experience, let's go
directly to the racism of those camps for affluent white children
which make a mockery of everything Native, from names toclothing to crafts and music. This pretend Camp name Nowanaweenee - employs the ridicule of Native languages tomake a joke which only makes sense if you are English-speaking. And I sincerely hope I don't have to say anything about the
picture on the shirt. 4
Unfortunately, the outrage of this picture doesn't stop here.
The photograph is captioned "Sue Fink & Friends." I was so
focused on the T-shirt, so incensed that it should appear here
when I know Sue has been challenged on this, including by me,that it took another friend, a Lesbian of color, to notice that theunnamed friends flanking Sue in the picture are Jean and June
Millington, Lesbian of color musicians every bit as well known
as Sue Fink. The photo, and the accompanying interview, were
produced by an African-American Dyke for Hot Wire magazine.
But in the context of this predominantly white book, it takes on
new meaning that the only Dykes of Asian/Pacific Island descent whom I could identify are not even credited in the photoacknowledgements in the front of the book. The picture is referred to as "Sue Fink in Camp Nowanaweenee T-shirt." This

4 I was holding up the picture at the time. The T-shirt has a cartoon-likedrawing of a young-looking female whose long dark hair is in pigtails, and
who is wearing a headband with a feather.

Spring/Summer 1994 67

may mean that it was actually chosen for that reason and that theMillingtons were incidental and, therefore, could remain nameless.
It's considered better, I know, to take someone aside anddiscuss these things privately. Of course, it's also way more
middle-class and I guess a lot of you know how I feel about thatsort of suggestion. 5 I'm not even sure what I want to come fromthis. At least, I don't want the book to be bought. I don't want it
used in Lesbian Studies courses. I don't want it to go into reprint.
I want my community, my Lesbian community, here in Oakland,to say no to this book and any and all others like it. I want toacknowledge, myself, that some of the issues I've brought out
here today were discovered or analyzed l;>y Lesbian friends ofmine: Jewish Dykes, Dykes of Color, white Dykes. I want apublic acknowledgement from all of us, and from the editors,
that if you take 92 Lesbians, and only 14 are of color, the result is
not Lesbian Culture. It is white Lesbians, plus tokens of color. That
is not the community I have worked twenty years to build. That
is not even the community I live in now.
I've given you the figures I've been able to ascertain frominformation in the Contributor's Notes, or because I know orknow of the Lesbians published here. I'd like each of you torecognize that I can count, for certain, 39 white Gentile Lesbiansin this book. If any of you are tempted to ask me what the "right"
figures would be, I will say only this. If it had 39 Latina Lesbiansout of 92, or 39 African American Lesbians, or 39 Jewish Lesbians,
many Lesbians in this community would protest the overrepresentation. Even more would simply refuse to consider thatkind of book a generic Lesbian Culture book.
The Introduction states that due to the "long history of racism in the U.S., Black Lesbians don't trust white Lesbians." (p. 5)
Well, I don't say no to that, though I'd like to pause long enoughto point out that those are not the only two races in this country.

5 This remark was directed to my hometown audience. For those unfamiliar
with my work, I spend a very large portion of my time ranting about classism
and resisting the class assimilation our lesbian communities continually
demand.

68

sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesMore to my point is that it is tim~, and past time, for white
Lesbians to admit that though there is, indeed, no reason for any
Lesbian of Color to trust us, that is not what keeps our communities segregated. We are the ones with the power to exclude, andwe use it. We don't trust them. And that distrust is racism.
EpilogueI returned to my table and Julia returned to the stage, where
she made a few comments on efforts that had been made to
expand the diversity of the book. There were three more readersscheduled, but many in the audience were unwilling to continue
the reading, as though, one dyke said, oppression was something we could afford to shelve until a more convenient time. An
impromptu discussion developed, initiated by dykes at my table,
who knew what I had come there to do, supported it, and alreadyknew some of the things they wanted to say. Some folks left inanger, others for reasons unstated. It was finally suggested that
we decide one way or the other, to continue the reading or havea discussion. Enough voted for the discussion that it happened,
although even more lesbians left at that point.
And it was a discussion, not a trashing, as some have reported
experiencing in the past. That was the most cheering thing formany of us. It was understood that this was not an opportunity
to point at Julia as though we had just found the source of all
racism, leaving ourselves innocent. (This is important, sincemost, but not all, of the lesbians present were white. 6) The discussion did not devolve to a recipe of numbers, as in just-addmore-pieces-by-dykes-of-color-and-mix. Some in the room were
supportive of the book and of Julia, others supported my posi-

6 Julia's reference, in her letter to me, to a Native American lesbian who had
been unable to participate left me baffled. I found someone who had been
sitting closer to Julia and she does recall a womon saying she'd grown up on
a reservation as the opening to her remarks. From my corner, I didn't hear that.
I remember a lesbian who was interrupted, but she challenged the interruption and finished what she had to say. My question is, if Julia thought a
lesbian was being silenced, why didn't she do something then?

Spring/Summer 1994 69

tion. julia's responses, though disappointing to me personally/
were calm and reasoned. There was also participation, in written
form, by a homebound lesbian friend who had asked me, in theevent of an op~n discussion, to distribute her statement as adisability accommodation.
Julia and I spoke privately for a moment after the reading.
She said she had known what I was going to do as soon as I
entered and told her I would be reading a piece on racism which
I had written for that day. I asked her if she understood the points
that had been made. In other words, I said, do you get it? Do wepart allies on this issue? She said, sure, although she didn't think
1'd really accomplished anything. I added that I had chosen the
public mode because our private challenges to each other, as
white womyn, have been getting the community exactly nowhere.
A nu·m ber of white lesbians commented to me afterward that
their thinking about how to confront oppressive behavior had
been altered by the reading and discussion that day. Some of us,
hoping for radical change, not just an absence of verbal assault,
could only say, "It could have been worse." Some felt that Julia
had handled it well and that we had all learned some things.
Some thought it was all just talk.
Since then, I have received the letter to which I alluded at the
top of this piece, in which Julia retracts any suggestion that she
understood. My only hesitation in presenting my speech andJulia's letter together is that confronting oppression is a necessity, not something on which we can take sides and must present
equal time, as it were. It would be heartbreaking to me if whitelesbians, instead of dealing with the oppressions involved, turned
the whole matter into a question of whom to believe.
White lesbians need to deal with the quality of community

7 My disappointment lay in my belief that if a person acts out of ignorance,
education can remedy the situation. Julia indicated that she had known theexact numbers of lesbians of color and white lesbians and had gone ahead
with publication, even stating that this adequately represented actual participation in lesbian culture. She hadn't known what June and Jean Millington
looked like, she said, failing to recognize that it was her duty to identify themand give them credit before profiting from the use of their images.

70 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

we have constructed, in which our o~trage at racism never equals
our outrage at having it pointed out. The qualities we most lovein ourselves as political activists against men in the patriarchybeing upfront, confrontive, outrageous, refusing smokescreens,holding oppressors accountable - are the very qualities we mosthate when we are active against the privileges and oppressions
we bring into our dyke communities.
Elana wrote to Julia for permission to include the letter I
received from her. Julia replied by phone message that our January 24th deadline was too soon for her to respond, and that she
wanted a copy of what I had said that day. On the 24th, before I
made the copy, I received from Julia a 16-page, single-spacetyped diatribe, with four attachments, three of which had been
circulated without permission from their authors. Certain comments in the statement indicate that the packet may have been
sent to 100 or more dykes. The general tone of the statement isthat persecution, evidenced by actions such as mine, has driven
Julia to leave lesbian community and activism. There is also an
insinuation that what SW publishes herein may not be what I
really said that day.
My motive in all of this is just what I said at the reading, and
if Julia or anyone else wishes to try and convert it into a dispute
among white womyn, they will have to do so without my participation. I have said what I need to about the book. Any responses
should be about that, not about my attitude, tone of voice, lackof etiquette or credentials, or off-hand jokes or remarks madethen or since. Do we or do we not wish to combat the racism,class ism, anti-Semitism and other oppressions which have left
us with only the shell of lesbian community?8

8 I engaged in long conversations with many friends before and since thereading, and my love and appreciation go to them for their support, ideas andpatience. I thank Leslie Levy, Jamie Lee Evans, Suz Fields, Monifa Ajanaku,
Naja Sorella, Michele Nichols and Laura Stem for being allies when I needed
them .

Spring/Summer 1994 71

Julia Penelope

December 29, 1993
Dear Caryatis:
When you came to speak to me after the "event" you and yourfriends staged at Mama Bear's on November 28th, you asked me
if we could "still be allies." At that time, I replied "Yes," aresponse I must now apologize for and withdraw. You also told
me you "couldn't think of another way 9f doing it" (which I
interpreted in that context as referring to your allegations ofracism). I now realize that I cannot trust you, nor, on the basis ofyour treatment of me at Mama Bear's, do you trust me. Without
trust and respect, we have no basis being allies.
If it was your intention to humiliate me, hurt me, or discredit
me, or some combination of similar aims, then you selected themethod appropriate to your aim(s), whether or not it was successful. If, as you claimed, you wanted to address what seem to you
the manifestations of racism in the Lesbian Culture anthology,
there were a number of alternative methods available to you. If
you had trusted me and my politics, I believe you'd have approached me in a different manner. You might, for example, have(1) written to me and/ or Susan Wolfe at any time during thetwo years prior to the publication of the book, because you knew
we were working on it;(2) written to one or both of us after the anthology had been
published expressing your dissatisfaction and urging us to "makeright" what you perceive to be errors of consciousness;(3) written to me before I left for the west coast, because you
had all the information concerning my trip ahead of time, tellingme what you planned to do;(4) called me (if you could afford it) to tell me what youplanned to do.
Whatever alternative method you might have chosen, you
would have made sure that I had a copy of your allegations
before you read them. Your chosen method of confrontation,

72 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

however, reveals your intent to "surprise" me and your assumptions that made you think that surprise was an appropriate way
to make public your concerns. The way you chose to voice yourobjections to Lesbian Culture reveals your very cynical assumptions about who I am: (1) that I am indifferent to or ignorant of
the facts of our different oppressions and the ways they areintertwined in our lives, (2) that I am somehow otherwise inaccessible to you and other Lesbians regarding discussions about
how we can address and challenge each other about these oppressions and their manifestations in our communities. Neitherof these assumptions is true about me. (I won't, in this letter,attempt to demonstrate the inaccuracy of your assumptions because any presentation of facts seems to be interpreted as "defensive," in which case facts are irrelevant.)
Had you chosen to treat me, as a Lesbian, differently, I might
now believe that "racism" in the anthology was your point. But
I don't believe that. I believe that you had some other motive fortreating me as you did. Other Lesbians who were present havetold me they believe that you were trying to "score points" off ofme, and that your self-righteousness suggested a "holier-thanthou" attitude. It didn't help, for example, when individuals at
your table talked over the Winnebago Lesbian when she tried toenter the discussion, although she began by identifying herself
as a reservation-born Native American.
You should also know that your actions and your statementthat Lesbians should refuse to buy the book did not have theeffect you said you intended. Lesbians who hadn't planned tobuy the book did, those who were going to buy one copy bought
two or three instead. And they did it, not because they're also
racists, but because they were angry and very tired of watching
one group of Lesbians attack and abuse another Lesbian for what
they claim is some lack of political consciousness. Yes, I felt you
were verbally abusive toward me. I believe I deserve better
treatment from you and your friends.
You should know that, because of your accusations, I informed Dykes of Color who had planned to read with me at otherbookstores about what you had alleged, including some of your

Spring/Summer 1994 73

examples (Sue Fink's Camp Nowannaweenie T-shirt, Elliott's
description of tofu; JEB's picture on the cover), and told themthat they could decide whether or not they still wanted to appear
with me. I told them that I did not want to tokenize them orappear to tokenize them, and that I would understand if they felt
they couldn't appear with me.
I think that assumptions are an important part of your chosen
actions. I am now in possession of a copy of [ther letter that you
passed out at Mama Bear's, something I wasn't given until acontributor put it in my hands the evening of the reading at Old
Wives Tales. I assume that, because you distributed it, you share
Sorella's assumptions that Lesbian Culture is "a book on a small
number of Lesbians, those with the bucks' to get books like thisprinted." You should know enough about publishing in generaland Lesbian publishing in particular to know that neither Susan
and I nor the contributors to the anthology have "the bucks" topay for producing such a book. To make such an allegation andto distribute it as though you want it to have wider circulation isboth irresponsible and malicious on your part. Furthermore, tohold up the anthology and ridicule the photo of JEB as a picture of"a young, thin, white, privileged lesbian," because her teeth arestraight, as you did, was unconscionable. JEB is white, but she is a
Jew, the photo is about 20 years old - JEB when she was a younger
Dyke. That photo, and the postcard she made with it, are considered by many Lesbians to be Lesbian "classics." Whether or not
you agree with that evaluation, having straight teeth, while it may
indicate class privilege, is not the best criterion for such an allegation. First, JEB is working class.- Second, as a Dyke of Color said:"I have straight teeth because it was get them fixed or lose all ofthem." (She chose the first option.)
You should know, by the way, that Susan and I did not'Editors' note: The letter referred to here was a disability accommoda tion bywhich a homebound dyke participated in the b ookstore discussion. 5 W considers it inappropria te for that individual to be singled out by name simply because
her remarks were made in writing.
,. JEB and Julia would like to change this to say that JEB identifies as middleclass.

74 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

request your permission to reprint "tremors" in the anthology
because of "class." We like the poem; we thought it was powerful. We accepted "My Old D)lkes' Home Scream" because wethought you said many important things. If your "class" identity
had motivated our selection, why then we couldn't have been
"good" Lesbians anyway because we'd tokenized you! From
your position, either we "tokenize" too little, or we weren't"aggressive enough" (from one of your friends during the discussion), or we "tokenize," period.
Finally, I've talked to Susan about the fact that you are"ashamed" to be included in Lesbian Culture, and we will deleteboth of your contributions to the anthology as soon as we can. I
can't say exactly when, because the deletion will require making
many new plates throughout the book (Table of Contents, thetext itself, Contributors' Notes), and I cannot commit Crossing
Press to such an expensive undertaking. That decision is theirs
to make, not mine. But we can request it, and we will.
Sincerely,

Julia Penelope
P.S. One other thing, your snide comment about my assumptionthat women mistrust the medical establishment: You should
know that your situation, having "a sweet, Lesbian doctor" who's
taken such good care of you, is a privilege of the area in which
you live. You don't have the right to assume, as you do,that yourspecial case is any reason why women should trust the AMA andthe doctors it produces. Both my mother and I have been thevictims of AMA doctors in times when there were very few
doctors, much less lesbian doctors. Your arrogance and selfrighteousness is appalling, and for you to presume to "correct"
my statement ignores the long, long history of medical misogyny(which continues) and iatrogenic practices, both of which havebeen more than adequately documented by feminists.

Spring/Summer 1994 75

Jamie Lee Evans

Lesbians and the Even Steven Syndrome
or For white class privileged dykes whoshould know better(a sarcastic pissed off poem)
Even Stevenis what you say
we are.
You know,
because we are at the same placeat the same time
because we have the same job
the same car
the same salary
the same amount of vacation
because we've both gone to the same festivals
some of the same concerts
seen the same videos.
Because we like the same shoes
each have 10 pairs of jockey underwear
own a computer
work in publishing . .
have b.a.'s, m.a.'s, phd's, mfce's, lcsw's
and a sufficient dosage of bs.
It seems to be a syndrome among
privileged sighted women if you see me, than I must no longer be oppressedor I must have never been oppressed or maybe I was oppressed,
but the oppression didn't really hurt me
not really, right?

I'll call it the even steven syndrome,something for you professionally minded girls to sink your teeth intoa real title, a diagnosis.

76 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

I'll submit it to the dsm IIIr,*.
it'll be categorized and covered in your insurance plans:"The ancient u.s. privileged lesbian belief that we were
all created equal under god."
Ohhh gawd,
Yes, it only popped up once we found each other,or more accurately,
once you found me[in your world]
Funny thing that I can be here,occasionally.
yet, never quite the samenever knowing when I'll be made to feel uncomfortable,
be stared at, be the subjectof bad jokes or thoughtless remarks.
I'll have to say women of color, woman of color,dyke of color, Asian dyke, Chinese dyke, mixed-blood dyke,
at least twenty times just to make sure that I be acknowledged ...
Like the time when I was at Rhythmfest, in one of
the coveted cabins no less, and a group of white dykes came in,took one look at the way we had arranged the bunk beds,
and said aloud and laughing, "my gawd, it looks likean internment camp in here ... " ha. ha.
Then women wonder why
there were less than 10 Asian women at the festival.
Even steven,"I mean, you got here, it couldn't have been that bad?"
And I wonder for all the dykes who didn't say it,
did you think it?
And, for gawds sake, don't say ignoring my life is about
treating me with equality,
about treating us all the samethat "can't we all just get along," kinda crap
because that's not it, not at all.
* Diagnostic Statistical Manual, 3rd edition, revised - a tool therapists use todiagnose patients.

Spring/Summer 1994

77

When you treat someone like "we're all the same,"even stevena peaceful loving people,
we are even less your equal than before,
as you've just erased all our struggle
all our pain, the time we spend and waste on some of the women
who we align ourselves with, and sometimes end up shamefully
begging for equality!
When you erase my struggles, you erase me.
You erase the life force and fight that got me into your classroom,
dining room or writer's cottage in the first place.
So please,just stop acting pretending and wishing that it was all equal.
One scenario I can guarantee,
if we all did have the same level of power
I would be light years ahead of you right now.

Young officer
Uganda, Africa, 1993

Jean Weisinger

78 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Neta C. Crawford

Diva GirlI am afraid of you diva girls
so into your selves
conferences, book parties, board meetings
your famous self
you will forget that
I exist
apart
from
you
your mirror of how good you areto other black womenSpring/Summer 1994 79

Myke Johnson

Wanting to be Indian:Cultural Appropriation in
White Feminist Spirituality
You can't hear the grass breathe
because you're too busy talking
about being an Indian holy woman two hundred years ago
You sure must stink if you didn't let gal-Chrystos
How has racism affected white women's search for spiritual
empowerment? How has white women' s spiritual search adversely
affected people of color? How can we work toward a womanvaluing-spirituality which is deeply anti-racist?
When white :women began to be hungry for a woman-valuing spirituality, it was easy to look to other cultures and be
excited about rituals and stories we saw there. Encouraged by the
new age movement, many white feminists began exploring
Native American and African spiritualities. We gravitated totheir greater emphasis on female deities and positive roles for
women. We found a resonance with their greater focus on theearth, their grounding in the interconnectedness of all beings.
Because of our misunderstanding of feminism as uniting womenacross race and culture, it was easy to jump in and claim thesetreasures as our own lost histories.
Many Native and African American women have since informed us that this is not how they see it. 2 They have introduced
us to the concept of "cultural appropriation," naming as theft themisuse of Native and African cultural symbols and practices bywhite people. These women of color have asked white women
1 From a poem by Chryst os, "Shame On!" in Dream On, (Vancouver: Press
Gang, 1991), pp. 100-01.
2 See references in footnotes throughout article, plus Amoja Three Rivers,
Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the WeI/-Intentioned, 1990 (distributed by Market
Wimmin, Box 28, Indian Valley, VA 24105).

80 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

who truly want to be sisters, to be all~es, to join them in condemning the new age appropriation of the cultural heritage of peopleof color. This has been a difficult challenge for white women tounderstand and take to heart.
This challenge has been a source of deep transformation forme. I stand in a peculiar relation to the question of cultur~lappropriation because I am a woman with mixed racial ancestry,
with both European and Native heritage. I grew up in white
patriarchal christian culture, with fair skin and red hair, and only
a reminder that we were "part-Indian" to link me to any otherculture. It was when I began to reclaim the power of the mothers,
that I found my matrilineal descent was from the Innu, who werecalled Montagnais by the French. My mother line led me to these
women who were not white, who were made white by the racist
and sexist practice of the assimilation of Native women into
white culture through marriage.
Part of my attempt to reconnect with my female Innu roots
drew me into exploring ''Native spirituality." Luckily, it also
drew me into political activity with Native people, for sovereignty, land rights, and religious freedom. It has been my engagement with these real issues and realities of Indian life thathas brought me into connection with a me who is Indian. It also
brings into sharper relief the me who is white, gives me a deeper
insight into what whiteness is in this society. It undercuts thatfeature of whiteness which is about not having to look at itself,
because it is the dominant norm, the "way things are."This dual identity creates a grammatical problem when I
write about cultural appropriation. How do I use "we" and "they"
when I am included in both categories? In this article, I want tospeak as a white woman especially to other white women. I haveheard many Indian people speak out about these issues. It seems
to me that it is white women in the women's spirituality movement
who especially need to wrestle with these issues, if we are to betrue to our commitment to the survival and liberation of all people.
White racism works in many ways. For example, many cultures have maintained a more spirit-including world view thanEuro-American cultures. White racism has called these views"primitive," while considering white perspectives as "advanced."
To study the cultures of people of color with new awareness andSpring/Summer 1994 81

appreciation can be a positive way to undermine that form ofcultural imperialism. To glorify or romanticize the stereotypes ofthese cultures is just another form of racism: for example, toconsider all Indians as mystical and close to nature, all Africans
as rhythmic and possessing powerful magic. This form of racismis currently rampant in the new age movement, as well as othercontexts of mainstream life.
So-called ''Native American spirituality" has been a particularcommodity on the new age market. 3 A look at any new age magazine, center for workshops, or even the bulletin board of yourfavorite women's bookstore, will reveal some white person claiming to have studied "Native American beliefs, traditions, andrituals for many years." They will then offer-a course or workshop,
for a price, which will use Native spiritual practices to help us to"experience our wholeness" and "our primal female energies."4Andrea Smith, Cherokee activist and member of Women of
All Red Nations, points out that actual Native religions are diverse community based religions, and reflect the particular needsof each community. ''The 'Indian' ways that these white, New
Age 'feminists' are practicing have little grounding inreality... .they do not understand Indian people, or our struggles
for survival, and thus they can have no genuine understandingof Indian spiritual practices."sJanet McCloud, Tulalip elder and fishing rights activist, reflects
First they came to take our land and water, then our fishand game .... Now they want our religions as well. Allof a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they're medicine people. And
they'll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks.
It's not only wrong, it's obscene. Indians don't sell
3 I am focusing on the appropriation of Native American cultures because I
am most familiar with and engaged in this particular battleground, andbecause this is perhaps the most popular culture for such an assault. However, the principles of which I am speaking apply also to the appropriation of
African, Asian, and Middle Eastern spiritual and cultural heritage.
4 Quotes from a random flyer found on a women's bookstore bulletin board.
S Andy Smith, "For All those Who Were Indian in a Former Life," Sojourner,
Vol IS #3, Nov., 1990, p. 8. Now in the anthology, Ecofeminism and the Sacred,edited by Carol J. Adams (New York: Continuum, 1993), pp.168-71.

82 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

their spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is justanother in a very long series of thefts from Indianpeople and, in some ways, this is the worst one yet. 6
Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo author and teacher, sums
it up by saying, "You cannot do Indian spirituality without an
Indian community... .it's physical and social and spiritual andthey're fused together."7
There are also Indian individuals who are marketing thesepractices. Some Indian people who become "teachers" of white
people defend the practice by saying it is time to share these
wisdoms. They put forth the idea of a "rainbow tribe," composedof people of all races and nations living together in harmony. I
have noticed, however, that the context of this sharing is in whitedominated new age circles, not in Indian communities. McCloud
comments, "They're thieves and sell-outs, and they know that
too. That's why you never see them around Indian people anymore."B In 1980, a resolution was passed by the Circle of Eldersof the Indigenous Nations of North America against Indians"who use spiritual ceremonies with non-Indian people for profit."
In 1984, the American Indian Movement passed a resolution
supporting the Elders.9
When I am in Native political and community contexts, among
those who are struggling against oppression, I hear these sentiments echoed over and over again. Yet when I am in white andmulticultural feminist contexts, women seem to have a reallyhard time understanding cultural appropriation. "I cannot see
the harm in worshipping the Goddess in whatever cultural form
you can relate to,"10 writes one woman in a letter in a woman's
spirituality magazine. Another echoes in a more disgusted tone,
6 From "Spiritual Hucksterism: The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men," inWard Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians, (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1992) p. 217.
(Originally published in Z Magazine, Dec., 90.)
7 Jane Caputi, "Interview with Paula Gunn Allen," Trivia 16/17, Fall 1990, p. 50
8 Ibid.
9 AIM Resolution, May 11, 1984, at Sovereign Dine Nation, Window Rock,AZ. Full text is in Churchill, op.cit., pp. 226-28.
10 Sage Woman #17, Oct., 1991, p.4S

Spring/Summer 1994 83

speaking against"politically correct" wiccans/pagans saying I can't
worship the Goddess(es) that I want to (that speak tome) because I'm of "European descent" and am therefore
committing "Cultural Genocide" no matter what I doY
By denying the spiritual and political autonomy of Indianpeople, the new age "rainbow" people subvert whatever goodintentions they may have about multi-cultural community. Whatgets created is multi-cultural white middle class dominance in
yet another form.
An even more ominous excuse I have heard, also from both
new age white people and Indian "teachers/' is that Native peoples
are dying out, and therefore these treasures must be passed on towhites so they are not lost. White Americans, at least in the
United States, like to believe that Indians are a phenomenon of
the past. This creates a climate in which denial can be maintained
about current day assaults on Indian land and livelihood. Indians are not "dying out" but they are being killed even today, byradioactive mining, environmental waste, and FBI bullets, among
other things. They are also fighting back and surviving.
I don't mean to discount the fact that there are Indian people
on all sides of this issue. Like all groups of people, Native people
have many different opinions and political leanings. But if weare concerned about fighting oppression, I believe it makes
sense to pay attention to those Native people who are fighting
against the oppression of their people. At some point, we have tochoose those with whom we are going to make alliance.
To better understand cultural appropriation/ theft and its deadliness, and to distinguish it from appropriate cultural sharing, I
think an example from European history might be helpful. Cultural
appropriation is one of the ancient tools of domination andcolonization. It has been going on throughout history, w henever
one culture has attempted to conquer another. Battles are notfought only by the force of arms, but also by images and ideas.
Any context of domination will include such cultural imperialism. This isn't unique to U.S./Native relations.
11 Sage Woman, p. 46.

84 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Many feminist scholars have pointed to evidence suggestingthat there were early female images of divinity throughout "prehistoric Europe." The Catholi" Church took the image of thegreat mother goddess, and incorporated it as the virgin Mary,
Mother of God. It used her early pagan sacred sites for building
shrines to Mary. The church absorbed many such pagan symbols, yet distorted and transformed their meaning and theirimpact on the lives of the people.
The shift of context, control and usage created important shiftsof meaning and power. The conqueror took what had been an imageof empowerment and valuing of women and turned it into an image
promoting female acquiescence to male pre-eminence. They wereable to then redefine female goodness as obedience, humility, andrejection of sexual energy. To capture and transform the image of thegoddess in this way served to further solidify the subjugation of
women, and undermine the ideas fostering resistance.
How is this similar to the cultural appropriation of Native
images and practices by the new age movement? I will use theexample of one practice, the "vision quest," a ritual found in Lakota
culture (as well as in several other Native nations), which is now
offered for a price in many new age contexts. In traditional Lakota
culture, the vision quest was a time of fasting and prayer in themountains, and fit into the unfolding of a person's role within
their community. The elders of the community sent the individual
forth with prayers, and received them back offering interpretation of their visions and guidance for living out their implications.
The context was a belief that the person's individual life and calling
was a gift for the whole group, and their connection to the spirit
world would bring them into deeper connection with the community. Each existed in balance with the other.12
When this ritual is brought into a new age context, its meaningand power are altered. First of all, the focus shifts to white people's
needs and visions. There is no accountability to a community,
particularly any Native community. Secondly, the form and structure of the ritual itself has been changed. The focus of spirituality in the new age is much more on individual growth and pros12 One account of the vision quest is given in Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe (NewYork: Penguin Books, 1971) pp. 44-66.

Spring/Summer 1994 85

perity. The giving and receiving of the Native way is transformed
into buying and selling, a sacrilege in Native contexts. What iscalled "Indian spirituality" has actually become a distortion. It
cannot be relied on, it has been warped to fit another agenda.
What are some of the effects of this warped agenda on Native
people? The actual realities of Native communities are erased.
Native communities have been under assault for 500 years, andare facing issues of dislocation, poverty, suicide, unemployment,
addiction. In Native communities, the recovery of traditional
practices such as the vision quest helps build identity and community pride, helps empower Native communities for life
struggles against a racist mainstream.
This process is ultimately intended to supplant Indians,
even in areas of their own customs and spirituality. In
the end, non-Indians will have complete power to define what is and is not Indian, even for Indians. We aretalking here about an absolute ideological! conceptual
subordination of Indian people in addition to the total
physical subordination [we] already experience. When
this happens, the last vestiges of real Indian society
and Indian rights will disappear. Non-Indians willthen "own" our heritage and ideas as thoroughly as
they now claim to own our land and resources.13
Pam Colorado
It is important to notice that Indian people are not saying,"Don't learn about Indian culture." Rather they are asking thatwhite people learn more deeply and accurately about Indiancultures and in a context which does not foster their destruction .
... for those of you who want to know what Aboriginal
people are like, let us tell you. Participate in our writings, feel our visual art, move with our music, hear in

13 Pam Colorado, Oneida activist, quoted in Wendy Rose, "The Great Pretenders: Further Reflections on Whiteshamanism," in M. Annette Jaimes, Th e
State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance (Boston: South End
Press, 1992) p. 405. (Original quote in Ward Churchill, "A Little Matter of
GenOCide: Native American Spirituality and New Age Hucksterism,"
Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 8 #5, Sept'/Oct., 1988, pp. 23-4.

86 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

your heart our stories.

Joy Asham Fedorick14
There are many community rooted Indian writers, artists, scholars, and cultural workers we can support, for example by buying
their books instead of the new age impostor books, and helping
to "break down the barriers which stand in [their] way to fullcreative and cultural expression."15
Cultural sharing involves interaction with the whole of aperson and community, reciprocal giving and receiving, sharingof struggle as well as joy, receiving what the community wants
to give, not what you want to take. Cultural sharing begins in
respect, with patience not to make assumptions but to risk stepping outside of our own frame of reference. 16
We need to birth in our hearts a commitment to the cultural(and literal) survival of Native people, just as a commitment to
the empowerment of women is held there. Once we have decided to let our politics guide our spirits, we will find there aremany things to do, both in the area of our connection to Indianpeople, and in our search for women-valuing spirituality. For the
rest of this article, I want to focus on ways in which this commitment to solidarity against racism and cultural genocide informs
our creation of women's spirituality.
What are some of the ways we can work toward a womanvaluing spirituality which is culturally located and deeply antiracist? Part of what feeds cultural appropriation is a deep spiritual hunger in white people. This sense of starvation is very real,
but we must realize: Native people are not keeping us from spirit.
White culture has broken and disrupted its own spiritual heritage. If there is such a thing as spirit, we can recreate a path to it,
we can hope that it will help us in that process.
14 Joy Asham Fedorick, "Fencepost Sitting and How I Fell Off to One Side,"in Give Back: First Nations Perspectives on Cultural Practice, (North Vancouver,
BC, Canada), Gal/erie: Women Artists' Monographs, Issue 11, 1992, p. 42.
15 Ibid., p.38
16 For those who would like to learn more about the experience of Indianpeople and support Native women writers, I would recommend the books ofthe following Native writers, as a start: Paula Gunn Allen, Beth Brant, Maria
Campbell, Chrystos, Louise Erdrich, Janice Gould, Janet Campbell Hale, JoY
Harjo, Linda Hogan, M. Annette Jaimes, Lee Maracle, Leslie Marmon Silko,
Anna Lee Walters.

Spring/Summer 1994 87

We need to explore the links of spirit to community. Ask
ourselves, Who is my community? how do we negotiate theworld together? Where do we find our power? What gives us
meaning? What is our relationship to the world around us?
The concept "Indian" is stereo typically linked to a connection to the earth and other species. In reality, we all live here on
this earth, our lives equally enmeshed with the fate of countlessother beings. These beings can teach us if we are quiet with them.
We need to trust that we can begin where we are, who we ate, in
our own lives. What are the animals and plants we rely on? What
feeds us? How can we honor that gift? How can we give back?
We can also look more closely at the deep desires underlying
the phenomenon of white people "wanting to be Indian." White
culture has attached those desires to a fantasy creation it called"Indian," which is not accurate to the real realities of Indians. But
the fantasy can teach us about our own realities. We may find that
we recover some lost shadow of ourselves which was projected
onto the "other."
Many Native people have encouraged us to explore the traditions of our own ancestors. Whiteness in the U.s. has served tohomogenize distinct European (and some part-European) peoples
into one entity, generally from the very racist intention of solidifying the Anglo-Saxon base of power against people of color. We
can counter that manifestation of racism by reconstructing ethnic cultural identity. People in the mainstream U.S. have beenpressured to dishonor our ancestors, to honor individuality andrebellion against our cultural traditions, as well as conformity todominant patterns. To honor cultural location is a profoundtransformation of a way of thinking.
I think it is important for white women to acknowledge therisks involved in exploring a woman-valuing white spirituality.
While the fantasy image of the "Indian" has been romanticizedand spiritualized, the fantasy image of the "witch" is as sinisteras ever, despite the occasional "good witch of the North." Women
accused of being witches were burned and tortured. We carry in
Our collective European psyche the memory of this gynocide.
When we face ourselves as white women, we face this loss,
this tremendous assault on female power and value, perpetrated
upon us by our own people. To embrace woman-valuing spiritu-

88sinister wisdom #52 -Alliesality that is Euro-based implies a r~bellion against the dominant"spirit-world" of Euro-Christianity. For white women to reclaim
the word witch is to bring this-rebellious aspect of our search into
the open. There is a risk in this and tremendous power.
To be allies in the struggle against cultural appropriation, tofind grounded cultural sharing, we need to realize that the ~n­swer will not evolve as a set of rules we can follow. Nothing will
earn us a certificate of innocence. Cultural appropriation is muchbigger than any specific, individual dilemmas. We need to understand it in the context of structural racism. Racism is a systemof oppression in which the structures of society are operated andcontrolled by white people. Racism combines prejudice against
people of color with political; economic, and social power overtheir lives. Cultural appropriation is the use by a dominating orcolonizing people, in this case Euro-Americans, of cultural andreligious ceremonies and articles of a people experiencing domination or colonization, in this case Native Americans. On a fundamental level, cultural sharing will not be possible until we
end racism. In the meantime, only when we wholeheartedly join
the struggle to end racism, and all oppression, can we begin toexperience cultural sharing.
I want to close with some advice offered by Chrystos:Take nothing you cannot return
Give to others give more
Walk quietly
Do what needs to be done
Give thanks for your life
Respect all beings
simple& it doesn't cost a pennyl7-Chrystos17 "Shame On!" in Dream On (Vancouver: Press Gang, 1991), p. 101.

Spring/Summer 1994 89

Aspen

Fat Woman Strides
From my car I see
A fat woman stride
In shorts and check shirt
Moving like a dyke
Defiance Outsize
Brave woman pushes 'The stares aside
Ignores giggling
Teenagers, wears
Hard face on
Her sanctuary.
Fat woman strides
How proud she looks
I wish I could be
Right by her side.
Hate on the streets
Such courage needed
I put on my shorts
Defiance Outsize
Electric wheelchair
Moving like a dyke
Fat woman rides.

90 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Sadie green

My Life Would Have an Altogether
Different Shape Without It

I used to think if I just grew a mustache then everything would
be alright. As an adolescent I thought this. Now I should have
known the difference in anatomy by then, but that's when mybirth defect first rose to the surface in my list of major problems,passing the priorities of finding food to eat, places to sleep,
places to hide in from a mother who believed I had the devil's
mark. By the time of adolescence, years of her shame and violence toward me banished me from the family farmhouse to a life
outside, like that of an afraid, defensive animal.
Cleft Palate and "Harelip" were not the taunts she usedagainst me. It was words like "Idiot!" "the devil's child," "no one
will ever like you" and "what sin did I do to deserve YOU!" that
she threw at my face a thousand times. I was a burden to thefamily.
At age eleven I tried in several ways to run away. At twelve
I attempted suicide. By the time I was thirteen I lived outside
year round in Minnesota, and stole every scrap of food I ate.
At fourteen I escaped. My gate to freedom was a psych ward,
called Station 64.
1970. On Station 64 of Macey Hospital, the doors lock shutbehind me. This is safe Heaven to me. Here, there is routine; themeals are regular. I share a bathroom with running water andflush toilets. I have a real bed to myself and a roommate I'mallowed to speak with. And there are mirrors. My self-awarenesstakes on an entirely new dimension.
1969. Before I came to Station 64, there was the school counselor, a Mr. Wrenshaw, who,leaning across the desk one day withhis thin tie falling on the papers in between us, suggested inalmost a whisper, "You know sweetheart, all you have to do isSpring/Summer 1994 91

wear a little pancake make-up and no one will know the difference."
I just gripped the armrests of my chair and wondered what hemeant by that strange comment, how his words had anything to
do with me. When he pleaded, "Please, just talk to me!" I sat
motionless in that big chair. Silence was the only safety I knew.
Endure, slow-burn, and wait. Wait for the man to finish, thenshrink back into the crowd again, invisible.
1961. Back further, when I was six, I jumped rope with othergirls in the dirt driveway beside our little country church. Twogirls giggled behind their hands and pointed. I heard "ugly" inthe middle of their sentence and stopped jumping. I lookedbehind me thinking they meant someone else, then stood completely still, confused. Because until that moment I was proud towear the pretty striped dress that fit me perfectly. Soon afterwards, before my seventh birthday, we stopped going to thecountry church.
Twenty-five years later, when we sat awkwardly around thefamily table on one of my rare visits home, Ma told me flatly thereason none of them returned to church (ever again) was becauseof my embarrassment to them.
But on Station 64, I am accepted and included. We're like afamily of misfits. All of the kids and staff go on regular groupoutings. While I stand in line for ice cream at Como Park one day
I notice a small boy who clings to his mother's legs, staring at me.
By now I cover my face in public when I talk, look away selfconsciously when people notice. But this boy is so little. With
one finger in his mouth he pulls his mother's blouse, leans into
her body and whispers. She glances at me, then straight ahead in
the direction of the ferris wheel, pretending she doesn't reallyhear him. She pats his shoulder absently instead.
Later I will discover it is better when they talk to me directly.
Innocent. "Did you get that in an accident?" 'What's the matterwith your nose?" Then I can tell them how we're not all born thesame. I can have some pride in explanation. Unless the parent
interrupts, grabs the child away while smiling shallow apologies to me. Then all of us remain in shame.

92

sinister wisdom #52 -AlliesWhen I realize a mustache isn't going to happen, I discover
cover-up sticks in tubes like lipstick that you can buy in a varietyof shades. All through my teens into my twenties, I don't go
anywhere without one. The tube needs to be either on my person
at all times or available first thing, like hidden in the medicine
cabinet, in my shoe or bathrobe pocket. If I have a bed mate I get
up before I face them and run to the bathroom. I make frequent
trips to mirrors throughout the day to .check on "caking" or to reapply.
Bright sunlight is a problem. Easy to see make-up in brightsunlight, so I become obsessed with lighting. Sit with my backto windows in my own house or in public places. Prefer to besociable at night. I don't go swimming because make-up will
wash off. If I have a head cold, runny nose, all outside contact
stops. No school. No job. No company or roommates. Barricadedin my room instead, hiding behind hankies.
Over-compensating with big hair-dos (takes attention off theface). Wild hair. Disheveled. Ratted up. Big earrings. Ragged
sweaters. Preoccupied with clothing. I am driven to be noticed,
but without a birth defect.
Fall of 1980. While waitressing full time at a workers' bar andrestaurant, I manage to save two thousand dollars. At 25, I am
earning a dream to go to Europe. Carefully I pack my canvas
back-pack taking only bare essentials and I leave alone, to travel.
On a balmy blue sky day in February, I stand on a hill insouthern Portugal and look toward a country town. It is one ofthose moments where I recognize how I live in my head, how I
am lonely, when I feel my hand around the pale tube in my vest
pocket. No one knows me here. I have nothing more to lose. I
drop it in a trash basket inside a stone-walled castle and walk out
feeling naked, with a sense of freedom.
By 1984 my alliances are exclusively with women. I spend amonth alone in semi-isolation in the country. The high point of
my days is walking the quarter mile to the mailbox. One day I get
a letter from an old friend who spent jail time with me forprotesting military buildup. As I walk I read the precious words
she penciled on a page about a neighbor girl's cleft palate, hand-Spring/Summer 1994

93

written without apology or fear. I stop short in the middle of thatcountry road. I hear the crows caw in the distance; and then myown weeping begins. All the way home I sob to myself, notunderstanding until later how important those words are to me.
An excruciating silence has been shattered.
When I get home I place mirrors all around the house. I pickup mirrors at auction sales. I become obsessive about mirrors.
Since I live without electricity, I light candles and kerosene
lamps after dark. A huge 4x6" mirror is propped up on the tablein front of me where I sit at night to write in journals. I wrap myhead in scarves. I pull my hair back severely. I put it in clips, inrubber bands, I braid it. I let it hang loose in my face.
And I stare at all my faces. My face in moonlight. In candlelight. In daylight. I place the mirrors at odd angles for different
views. I wear turtlenecks and t-shirts, bold colors, pale color, andI wear nothing. As the layers of fear and muffled self-denial peelaway a clearer picture of myself comes into focus. I've worked
out another level of my private self-acceptance.
But I stay scared. As a child, I fantasized how someday I'd befamous, like a grand radio announcer. Then Ma and Pa would
hear my voice and be proud I was their daughter.
In 1986, at the age of 30 I go on the air. For two hours on Friday
mornings I try to make radio accessible to women least likely to
be heard. I do women's reggae and blues shows. I interview
welfare moms and women AIM (American Indian Movement)
patrols. But during the entire year, every time I walk into thestudio to face that program board in front of me, I panic. I planten minutes playing time for records, tapes, other recorded voices,
before I introduce my own voice. I go through my private hell ofcount down, deep breathing and relaxation, because I am selfconscious, terrified, to expose the nasal voice that is my own.
That fall Jane and I are contract painters for apartments in St.
Paul. Both of us strongly identify as working class, as lesbian
feminists. We both are secret fans of country music and we both
smoke cigarettes. I'm on a ladder trimming out a ceiling when I
pause. I ask her for a Lucky Strike, tum down the wailing radio
and then I tell her how I read this book ... written by a feminist,

94

sinister wisdom #52 -Allieswho casually lumps "harelip" on a character with a slovenly
stupidity. "And there was another book. .. " Jane listens. She
responds. She is right there ~ith me when I expose to someone
else how much this stupid stuff can hurt me.
1989. There's a chance my partner will have access to a chunkof money soon. One night she casually suggests how maybe s~e
can help me. Instantly I am defensive. "Don't even say that tome!" In my privacy sometimes I wish ... but who would I be
without it? And I can only see how cruel it is to let in just a
glimmer. How could I accept that kind of gift from her? I have toslam the door before self-hating fantasies get out of hand.
Instead I experiment with wearing bright red lipstick to
lesbian events. Breaking rules about the image of "real" lesbians
is small compared to how I break through my own boundaries,
how I draw attention to my crooked lip.
Deliberately, I visit a library to look for books about cleft
palate and cleft lip. Until now I've been oblivious to any information. But I ask my friend to take them though the checkoutline while I wait unattached across the room.
I hate the pictures in these books. I don't want anyone I know
to see them. I want to throw the books across the room, rip pages
out and burn them. Just like I want to rip it off my face or witha sharp knife cut it out as if it were an apple core. Yes it's true,
sometimes I want to. Especially during those times of profoundgrief when I know my mother never loved me and in fact tried tokill me because of it. This birthmark is the hub of family shame,
the punishment for family sin. But it's not just my family. Threepeople in three separate incidents during the same week verified
for me their families' christian belief that a cleft palate was thedevil's mark, a print of the devil's hoof, the "stamp of the devil."
I was also born left-handed which only reinforced the belief/thefear that I came from the devil.
Although this is the mountain underneath the molehill, it's
the molehill, or the superficial way it ties to my self-image, thathurts me on a daily basis. The way it takes over my face when I
am introduced to someone new. The way every time I walk intoa store or interact with strangers I wonder if they're cool to me

Spring/Summer 1994 95

because of it, or especially nice because of it. The way others
never speak of it. The way I'm lonely with it.
One day my best friend Lin and I walk inside a bakery for
coffee. We're talking about "difference" and for the first time afriend takes the risk of telling me how my difference affects her
in my company. Those rare times when I've asked before, they .
say it doesn't matter, they don't notice anymore. Of course I'mdying to believe them. Truth is, I've never gotten used to it
myself. For me, it's always there.
Now Lin tells me how it's not invisible to her, and never has
been. As soon as we open car doors to get out she pays attention.
Are they gong to treat her differently? She is aware. It hurts tohear her say this, means it cannot be ignored, but pretending isa heavy burden. If she is aware I am not totally alone.

pen & ink
Billie Miracle

96 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

karen thompson

Q .&A
So you want to know what it means to be a dyke
after i woke up i strangled a little in my trying not to think about
IT and HER and then i washed my body and then i washed theglasses and then the plates and finally the pyrex dish and wheni was all done with that i washed the floor on my hands andknees. By the time i reached the door my whole body felt like afraction of the grandmothers who had come before mrs johnson
sho nuff you kitchen is clean as can be oh beulah what would we
do without you you're the bestist maid a family ever had! i
uncurled my spine and ignored the throbbing and thought how
lucky i was that all i had to be worried about today was love andwhen i stood up i felt better.
we never have to freak because of forgotten pills/ creams/placed
diaphragm/requests to give half of the money for the abortion/
IUD / norplant/ cancer causing piece of hell made by some undisturbed testicle sporting doctor in a white coat and so the passion
continues completely without the influence of the male gender
we think about the heaving seething singing tight careening
feelings without stopping or thinking "what if he puts his handon the rolls of fat that cover my belly and screams in horror of mybody leaving me here alone?" we think about our bedrooms as
our own we want you to think about looking in a mirror cause
that's it but different
MARLON RIGGS IS A FAGGOT African-american Jamaican-american don't want you you have no place in myrevolution or god's see this war belongs to the straightand those of you who can't enter our heaven stop shaking
the earth AUDRE LORDE WAS QUEER hell is made up
of homosexuals who love children as they should be
loved and homosexuals who survived death camps inSpring/Summer 1994 97

shame or died while still alive homose~uals who sang theblues on stage and to positive needles homosexuals who
painted the sistene and the sky and hell is full of homosexual daughters mothers and your ancestors friends andprogeny JAMES BALDWIN WAS A FAIRY but yourbrown don't give you no passport and neither does the
kink in your hair isms only happen to the tinted and thatpink triangle on your chest don't do jack but tell me to get
the fuck away from you cause i never want to be without
my stereotypes LINDA VILLAROSA IS A DYKE.
pressed snatch to snatch and feeling large and small and drinking without danger and loving without .anger the beat sounds
away in your skin and the smell of beads of sweat between thefine hairs on the space above her lipsticked lip draws you and themusic loud and chaotic in your ears but no more chaotic than thesoul that is dancing hard trying to escape out to join hers but
seems to be stuck somewhere in the ribs between your teeth andher left breast
i am a queen a fairy a dyke a manroyal a sodomite eve a faggot

a queer a punk a bulldagger butch femme bent as my natural hairand gay as a lily and anything that moves hell i'm so fine i should
throw a party for myself and have god foot the bill
so what does it mean to be a dyke?

none of your goddam nosy ass breeder businessdamn

98 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Caryatis Cardea

Things To Do With Money

1you had fifteen dollars to spend, you could buy one cd, a medium
pizza with two toppings or a couple of lesbian mystery novels.
Or, you could wait for a sale on the compact disc, settle for one
pizza topping and a single who-dun-it, and give the difference tothe next homeless womon you meet.
But maybe twenty dollars is a better place to start; it's thesmallest sum you can get from your bank machine. For twenty
bucks, you could buy Batman on videotape, get a couple poundsof truffles at Cocolat, or do a hot tub with a friend.
Or, you could deposit it, unchanged, once a month, in a
lesbian emergency fund.
What one hundred dollars could buy: five pairs of socks, twohalf-hour massages and a coffeetable art book.
Or, one extra hour of attendant care, every month for a year,
for a disabled homebound lesbian.
With five bills, a person can get two nights at a seaside inn,a six years' subscription to a lesbian journal, a medium-size
television set or one hundred blank video tapes.
Or, you could find out who in your community hasn't seen amovie in three years because she's paying off medical bills, anddig her out of the hole.
Or, you could make the security deposits for a lesbian who
can't otherwise get off the street.
Or, you could just pay the rent this month for someone
you know who struggles to make ends meet; give her a little
breathing space, four weeks of not counting pennies, searching
jacket pockets for change, writing bad checks, buying only riceand oatmeal, and one orange for a treat.
Five thousand dollars will get you an Olivia cruise to the
Caribbean or cosmetic surgery to suck the fat out of your butt andinject it into your face to smooth out wrinkles.
Or, you could still take your vacation, in the Everglades,Spring/Summer 1994 99

maybe, or Yellowstone, and then buy a computer to set a dyke up
in self-employment. You could definitely skip the body mutilation, treat yourself to a massage and help some working stiff get
transportation to her shit job which you're glad you don't haveto have.
What I'm saying is, most of you don't even have to deprive
yourselves of anything, really, and you could still make a difference.
But, those of you with money to spend probably will notrecognize yourselves in this piece. You tend to think that theamount you have is just enough, that it is always others who haveabundance, cash to spare. But if you took a vacation this year, andit wasn't your first, or even your first in five years; or, if you tooka vacation and still managed to buy some major appliances or go out
pretty much whenever you felt like it or made loans to friends
who already have money like yours, then I'm talking to you.
You can have two toppings on your pizza, buy your new tv, go
to santa cruz for the weekend, take in a movie, buy all the socks
you need, and you could still make a change. You could materially alter the quality of life of a lesbian, possibly even a lesbian
you know, or know of, without depriving yourself of anything
you now enjoy.
And about the ways you share among yourselves, the loans
and investments that float about among you: I hope someday
you'it realize that if you have $1000 you won't miss for 3 to 5 years,
you have at least $100 you can do without altogether. If you cancontribute $5000 to your good friend's dream of ideal self-employment, you could also make it $4900 and give the remaining
C-note to someone with no job at all. While it's true that $20 amonth won't change anybody's life much these days, you cancharge a lot of money, increasing your payments by only $20 amonth. You could buy tools of the trade, or a computer, or a
couple of courses at night school, to help someone achieve selfsufficiency, and it'll cost you less than your pledge to KQED.
Next time you're sitting around, a middle-class dyke among
middle-class dykes, think about this: if each of you makes atleast $20,000 - and many of you do, and many of you make much
more - and you have among you one friend who cleans houses,

100 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

say, or is disabled and homebound, or does odd jobs, she's
probably living on $4000 to $6000 a year. Assume it's four. You,and each of three friends, could,. agree to live on $19,000, insteadof $20,000, and the one thousand each going to the poor dyke
would double her income, while depleting yours by only 5%.
She'd still be living on less than half what you consider jus!
enough. But that's OK: we have different opinions about ""hat isenough.
Some of you are already doing some of this. But it is the barestof beginnings. The next step is for you to convince your classsisters that this is the way to go, so that the benefits can be spreadaround even farther.
There should be an account, for instance, from which attendant hours, above and beyond what SSI will cover, can be paidin cash. There should be a free box for clothes, blankets, household goods and appliances. There should be a canned foods
drive for lesbians. There should be a group of dykes who see toit that homeless lesbians can get their laundry done and have a
shower once a week. We should ask any womon begging near arestaurant what meal she would like as we go in, and order it togo for her as we leave.
There are those of us who object, loudly and long, to thenumbers of lesbian hours that have been given so freely to ~enwith AIDS. If you do not donate your time and money andenergy to men, I am glad. But if those hours not being given tomen are going to no one at all, the guilt is the same. There arelesbians who need your help. We are not caring for our own, andthat is not a community.
I know you all read the newspapers. But when welfare andbenefits are cut, don't just bitch to each other about the governor
and the legislature. Look around you: someone you know is now
living on less money. Someone who was already more strapped
than anything you've ever experienced. Make an offer. Make adifference. Make it count.
The only question is this: If you were arrested on a charge ofloving lesbians, would there be enough evidence to convictyou?

Spring/Summer 1994 101- - -___________ Books Received
About the Books Received List: We list (almost) all the books we getin the mail. Unfortunately, we never have room to review everything
we think should be reviewed. I tend to list books here by books/
authors / presses I think are important (although all books from one press
are listed together), with an emphasis on lesbian-owned presses. If I've
read all or part of a book I may add subjective qualifiers like "read this."While the presence of adjectives can be interpreted as editorial endorsement, the absence of them only means I'm going by the publisher'spress release - Elana.

Forty-Three Septembers - a collection of ~ngaging, important essays
exploring Black, lesbian, Native American, raised poor, ex-catholic,family and writing issues by Jewelle Gomez. 1993, $10.95, FirebrandBooks, 141 The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850.
Experimental Love - new poetry by the gifted, compelling, challenging Cheryl Clarke. 1993, $8.95, Firebrand.
Before Our Eyes - a photo journalist comes of age, finds her way
through dysfunctional dynamics, discovers her bond with her lesbianmom, by Joan Alden. 1993, $8.95, Firebrand.
Dykes to Watch Out For 1994 Calendar - OK; so it's April- but if you
haven't seen this calendar yet, check out these cartoons by Alison
Bechdel. 1993, $10.95, Firebrand.
Spawn of Dykes Watch Out For - if it's too late for the calendar, it's
never too late to spend a night withMo and the rest of Alison Bechdel' s
cartoon gang, even if they are indulging in the lesbian baby boom.
1993, $8.95, Firebrand.
Give Back: First Nations Perspectives on Cultural Practice - the latest in
the women artists' monograph series, and an important group of essays
by six First Nations women. 1992, $6.95, Gallerie Publications, 2901
Panorama Drive, North Vancouver, B.C., Canada V7G 2A4.
In Her I Am - intense, disclosing sexual poetry and thought, intended
as "a gift given to other Lesbians," some of whom will not want it
while others will eat it up, by Chrystos. 1993, $12, Press Gang, 603
Powell St., Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6A lH2.
Out on Main Street and other stories - vivid, thoughtful explorations(read this!) of racial, cultural, sexual identities from an Indo-.
Trinidadian dyke, by Shani Mootoo. 1993, $12.95, Press Gang.

to102 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Home Movies - a lesbian deals with de~th, both AIDS and leukemia,
close to home and close to the bone by Paula Martinac. 1993, $10.95,
Seal Press, 3131 Western Ave., Ste 410, Seattle, WA 9812l.
The Mother I Carry: A Memoir of Healing from Emotional Abuse - by
Obsidian Mirror author Louise M. Wisechild. 1993, $12.95, Seal Press.
Trouble in Transylvania: A Cassandra Reilly Mystery -a mix of politics,
passion and intrigue, set in the Balkans, by Barbara Wilson. 1993,$18.95(cloth), Seal Press.
Dog Tags - a novel on lesbian love and sexual harassment among
WACS in Korea by Alexis Jude. 1993, $9.95, New Victoria, POB 27,
Norwich, VT 05055.
The Black Woman's Gumbo Ya-Ya: Quotations by Black Women -foundwords, observations, thoughts, poetry and dreams of350 Black women
world wide, edited by Terri L. Jewell. 1993, $10.95, Crossing Press,
POB 1048, Freedom, CA 95019.

Writing From the Heart: Inspiration and Exercises for Women Who Want
to Write - by Leslea Newman. 1993, $12.95, Crossing.
Eating Our Hearts Out - Personal Accounts of Women's Relationship to
Food - the 92 contributors offer something for any woman who's evertasted, edited by Leslea Newman. 1993, $12.95, Crossing.
What Is This Thing Called Sex? -large format cartoons, straight anddykely, edited by Roz Warren. 1993, $12.95, Crossing.
Without Wings - collection of interwoven stories of lesbian life, byJackie Manthorne. 1993, $9.95, gynergy books, POB 2023,
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, CIA 7N7.
Triad Moon - the past and present lives of three independent women,a novel by Gillean Chase. 1993, $9.95, gynergy books.
Miss Autobody - a play by the Quebec feminist theatre cooperative
Les Folles Alliees about a group of feminist mechanics who thwart aporn showing. 1993, $9.95, gynergy book.
Woman in the Rock - interwoven stories about forgetting and remembering incest by Claudia Gahlinger. 1993, $9.95, gynergy.
Black Slip - good poetry by Terry Wolverton. 1992, $7.95, Clothespin
Fever Press, 10393 Spur Court, La Mesa, CA 9194l.
Amazon Story Bones - Greek mythology from an Amazon's perspective, by Ellen Frye. 1994, $10.95, Spinsters Ink, POB 300170, Minneapolis, MN 55403-5170.

Spring/Summer 1994 103

Trees Call For What They Need - a novel of three women born at theturn of the century, a mill worker/tenant farmer, a Spiritualist me-dium and lesbian, a Polish immigrant who owns a bar, by Melissa
Kwasny. 1993, $9.95, Spinsters Ink.
The Other Side of Silence - a lesbian newspaper columnist is drawn
into a San Francisco murder mystery by her dog Agatha Christie, by
Joan M. Drury. 1993, $9.95, Spinsters Ink.
Give Me Your Good Ear-15thAnniversary Edition of Maureen Brady's
classic feminist novel about three generations of women who share ahearing impairment and secrets of violence. 1994,$9.95,SpinstersInk.
Happily Ever After - self-published novel of a lesbian life by Stacy
Chandler. 1993, $10, Speculators, Inc., POB 99038, Troy, MI 48099.
Learning to Sit in the Silence: A Journal of Caretaking -a straight Jewish
woman records the last years of her mother-in-law's life, by Elaine
Marcus Starkman. 1993, $9, Papier-Mache Press, 135 Aviation Way#14, Watsonville, CA 95076.
First Refrains and Sister, I-the first two poetry chapbooks of a promised "Seven-Course Feast," covering the period 1984-92, by Kay Stoner.
1992 & 1993, Stoner Productions, POB 8116, Santa Rosa, CA 95407.
A fucking brief history of fucking - a very lesbian poetry chapbook by
Janet Mason. 1992, $5, Insight to Riot Press, c/o 2300 Pine St. #9,
Philadelphia, PA 19103.
Goblin Market - A Caitlin Reece Mystery by Lauren Wright Douglas.
1993, $9.95, Naiad Press, POB 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302.
Not Telling Mother: Stories from a Life - a lesbian couple goes througha series of dyke vignettes, by Diane Salvatore. 1993, $9.95, Naiad.
Friends and Lovers - the complications of lesbian romance in "quiet"
Wisconsin by Jackie Calhoun. 1993, $9.95, Naiad.
Long Goodbyes - a Viginia Kelly mystery which unfolds during a highschool reunion, by Nikki Baker. 1993, $9.95, Naiad.
Stay Tooned - more lesbian survival hints in cartoon form by Rhonda
Dicksion. 1993, $9.95, Naiad.
Silverlake Heat,A Novel of Suspense -passion and intrigue, setin L.A.' s
gay Silverlake district, by Carol Schmidt. 1993, $9.95, Naiad Press.
Car Pool is romantic story set in the Bay Area, by Karin Kallmaker.
1993, $9.95, Naiad.
Under My Skin: A Robin Miller Mystery - the third entry in the highly
charged series by Jaye Maiman. 1993, $10.95, Naiad.

104 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

The Romantic Naiad: Love Stories by Nai~d Press Authors - edited byKatherine V. Forrest and Barbara Grier. 1993, $14.95, Naiad.
Keeping Secrets - the first Gianna.Maglione mystery by Washington
D .c.'s well-known TV-news reporter Penny Mickelbury. 1994, $9.95,
Naiad.
Michaela - a romantic interlude with a ballet background, the 10th
novel by Sarah Aldridge. 1994, $10.95, Naiad.
Butch - a coming of age and coming to consciousness novel by Jay
Rayn. 1993, $7.95, Lace/ Alyson,40 Plympton St., Boston, MA 02118.
Lesbian Quotations - somewhat after Bartlett's, silly and fun, compiled by Rosemary Silva. 1993, $9.95, Alyson.
The Alyson Almanac, 1994-95 Edition: The Fact Book of the Lesbian and
Gay Community - a handy reference book, covering the current U.s.
Congress as well as historical figures. 1993, $9.95, Alyson.
Word Gaymes -large format crosswords and crostics with gay themesby Kathleen DeBold. 1993, $8.95, Alyson.
Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader -lesbians and gay men tell
abouttheir lives ina world too often afraid of differences, by RaymondLuczak. 1993, $9.95, Alyson.
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe - and four other
Lily Tomlin tapes, sold separately or as a set, makes your VCR happierthan 99% of the videotapes you can rent. Available from Wolfe Video,
POB 64, New Almaden, CA 95042.
I Asked for Intimacy: Stories of Blessings, Betrayals,and Birthings - African
American, christian, womanist short stories by Renita J. Weems. 1993,$11.95, LuraMedia, 7060 Miramar Rd, Ste 104, San Diego, CA 9212l.
A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples, Seventh Edition - if you
need practical, detailed, examples of contractual relationships, this isthe book to get, by Attorneys Hayden Curry, Denis Clifford and Robin
T.eonard. 1993 (current revision), $21.95, Nolo Press, 950 Parker St.,
Berkeley, CA 94710.
Making the Estrogen Decision - pros and cons of replacement therapy,
by Gretchen Henken. 1993, $10, Fawcett.
The Morn ing After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War -deep andthoughtful investigations into the relationships between militarism,"masculinity," patriarchy and women, by Cynthia Enloe. 1993, $15,
Univ. of Calif. Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720.

Spring/Summer 1994 105

Tendencies - "queer" as it translates into academia; that is, a collection of essays from Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick whom Rolling Stone calls
the "queen of gay studies," with a heavy accent on gay. 1993, $15.95,
Duke Univ. Press, Box 90660, Durham, NC 27708-0660.
Empathy - the latest NY gay scene novelfrom Sarah Schulman. 1993,$10, Plume Books, 375 Hudson St., NY, NY 10014.
Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth - a feminist analysis
of nuclear-age popular culture and the accompanying return of Female Powers, by Jane Caputi. 1993,$12.95,Bear&Company,POB2860,
Santa Fe, NM 87504.

Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians - a new discussion, with theory and personal articles,
edited by Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony. 1994, $15.95,
Dniv. of Mass. Press, Amherst, MA 01004.
Protest & Possibility in the writing of Tillie Olsen - a literary examinationby Mara Faulkner. 1993, Univ. Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
Resurrecting the Body: Feminism, Religion and Psychoanalysis - a theoretical and personal examination into those fields of thought, with a lot of
struggle around the legacies of famous men, by Naomi R. Goldenberg.
1993, $14.95, Crossroad, 370 Lexington Ave., NY, NY 10017.
Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler's latest "science fiction" novel,
chronicling the odyssey of an 18-year-old black woman in the dangerousCalifomiaof2025.1993,$19.95 (cloth),FourWalls Eight Windows,
POB 548, Village Station, NY, NY 10014.
A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels & Radicals - a historicalexamination focusing on six late 19th-early 20th century activists andtheir social contexts, by Naomi Shepherd. 1993, $27.95 (cloth), Harvard
Dniv. Press, Cambridge, MA.
Hyena - a remarkably good, womon-centered first book of poetry by
Jan Freeman. 1993, $10, Cleveland State Univ., Poetry Center, Rhodes
Tower Room 1815, Cleveland, OH 44115.
The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance - Poems 1987-1992 is Audre
Lorde's last book of poems, a treasure for us all. 1993, $18.95 (cloth),W. W. Norton. 500 Fifth Ave., NY, NY 10110.

106 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Contributors' Notes _ _ _....,....-_ _ _ _ _ _ __Aspen: I am fat, forty and disabled, enjoying life with lesbians.
I am white, educated, raised by "aspiring" working class parents ..
Billie Miracle is a 49-year-old Euro-American who has lived on
women's land in southern Oregon for the past 19 years. She is a
visual artist working in pastels, acrylics, woodblock printmaking,and nature installation.
Caryatis Cardea: I am a 43-year-old white, dyke separatist of
Irish and French-Canadian descent. I am the fourth of nine children who grew up working-poor in Buffalo, NY, with muchhumor of Irish origin and much violence of multiple origins. I
have known music and homelessness, hippiedom and disability. I think of my life as a tragedy with a laugh track - and a rockIn' roll score.
Celia Rodriguez is a Tepehuan twospirit artist & teacher, celebrating new horne/studio in Oakland, California.
Jamie Lee Evans is not a mother of any kind, laughs hearty, spits
fire and sings out of tune when alone. She dreams of blue blue
skies, dark brown pottery and a clean bedroom. She is from thelower class, of Asian and European descent and just turned 27.
Jean Weisinger is based in San Francisco and she has traveled toEngland, Amsterdam, Germany, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand,Bali, the South of the United States, East Africa: Uganda, Kenya
and Tanzania. Later in the year she will travel to West Africa,
Zimbabwe, South Africa and India. She is currently working ona black and white photograph book of women around the world
called A Community of Women ... Women Speaking about Community
through essays, stories, poetry, music, etc. Her vision is to travel
around the world and take photographs of the beautiful, spirited
EARTH PEOPLE, and to make powerful photographic books as
gifts to the world.
Judith K. Witherow: Native American lesbian, artist, writer,
creator of chaos.

Spring/Summer 1994 107

karen thompson is a 22-year-old lesbian of color, newly transplanted to new york city. she is a lesbian avenger, a member oflavender light gospel choir and a graduate student at NYU. she
is teaching herself how to play the guitar.
Lisa Huebner is a M.A. candidate in Women's Studies at the
University of Cincinnati who is currently immersed in her thesis
project on sexual harassment in waitress positions but often
finds herself dreaming of the beach.
Myke Johnson is a working-class lesbian activist and spirit caller,beholden to her demanding and humorous Innu and European
ancestors. She has been leading workshops on cultural appropriation since September of 1992.
.
N eta C. Crawford is African American, in her 30s, and is a university professor. She is from the lower middle class and has beena vegetarian for 18 years.
Rachael Rosen: I'm an Ashkenazi Jew Dyke Sep, 27, middleclass, disabled by chronic illnesses. I'm SICK, but just fine theway I am. I'm also a member of the San Francisco Bay Area's
Jewish Lesbian Writers' Group.
Sadie green is a white working class rural lesbian in northern
Wisconsin. She works as a lower management staff-person in asocial change organization for homeless women and kids, and isfinishing a memoir about rural poverty and violence.
Tarascon: I am an Engineering student in Oregon.

108 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

Announcements and Classified Ads ______PUBLICATIONSESTO NO TIENE NOMBRE, revista de lesbianas latinas en miami,
is a new quarterly creative forum for latina lesbians wit~ aMiami twist. Open to all forms (Spanish, Spanglish, English),$10 per year (checks to: Tatiana de la Tierra). Guidelines, subs to:
4700 NW 7th St. #463, Miami, FL 33126.
.
MAIZE, A Lesbian Country Magazine. $10 per year (4 issues).
Single issue $3.50. New address: MAIZE, POB 130, Serafina, NM
87569.
WE ARE HERE - national resource guide for lesbian and gay
youth, pub. by the Gay Youth Comm. Coalition of the Bay Area,$5 {pay to We Are Here} from: 2215 Market St., #479, SF, CA 94114.
SEP - publication for lesbian separatists only since 1986. Ask alesbian separatist how to reach us. Be a part of the contagious
spread of dyke separatist courage!
TEEN VOICES - by, for & about teenage and young adult women,
sample $2: Women Express, POB 6009 JFK, Boston, MA 02114.
SONGS FOR PEACE special issue "Healing Time: Songs, Stories
and Poems of Women," $3.50, POB 090-312, Brooklyn, NY 11209.
CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONSTRIVIA: A Journal of Ideas is still accepting for "A Journal of
Rejected Ideas" - materials must have been rejected because ofcontent. Include a rejection letter if possible. Trivia, POB 9606, N.
Amherst, MA 01059-9606. Deadline: May I, 1994
WHAT ABOUT US? Children Tell of their Lesbian/Gay Parent's
Breakup: seeking first-person stories or thoughts from childrenof all ages for valuable anthology. Send work, queries to Jenn
Christiansen, POB 1841, Champlain, NY 12919 by June 30, 1994.
FUNNY STUFF - cartoons, photos, essays, brief verse and stories by women for the 4th Women's Glib humor anthology, andshorter pieces for the 2nd Glibquips: Funny Words by Funny Women.
Guidelines: SASE to Roz at Box 259, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004.

Spring/Summer 1994 109

MULTICULTURAL LESBIAN RELATIONSHIPS anthology.
First-person, cassettes, interviews O.K. Topics: racism in andoutside relationships, having/ raising children; socializing / friendships; language differences, etc. For guidelines, info: SASE toRene Dawson & Terri Jewell, PO Box 23154, Lansing, MI 48909.
BLACK LESBIAN CULTURE: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE Putting alII/correctness" aside, let's be honest and claim ALL weare, have been and will be for centuries! All and every form
(photos, bios, hers tory, songs, jokes, rumors, anecdotes, fashion,art, names, organizations, bars, poetry, essays, stories, radical
and separatist material) welcome. For guidelines, info: SASE to
Terri Jewell, POB 23154, Lansing, MI 48?09, running deadline.
INFORMATION ON HISTORICAL WOMEN for a travel guidebook to women's history in the U.S. Do you know a local statue,commemorative plaque, birthplace or grave; seen material about
women in your local historical museum, heard stories of notorious women? Leads will be acknowledged. Contact: Kiriyo
Spooner, 2 Meadow Place, East Haven, CT 06512.
LESBIAN FRIENDSHIPS - send 1-2 page submission proposal
for anthology ed. by Jackie Weinstock and Esther Rothblum, c/o
Weinstock, Center for Developmental and Health Research
Methodologies, Penn State Univ., 5-211 Henderson Bldg., University Park, PA 16802-6505 or JSW4@PSUVM.PSU.EDU (e-mail,Internet) by June IS, 1994.
RISING TIDE PRESS, a new lesbian publisher, seeks full-length
lesbian novels. For guidelines, send SASE to: Rising Tide Press,
5 Kivy St., Huntington Station, NY 11746.
THE SAGE WITHIN -The Spiritual Lives of Everyday Women
seeks prose on how women incorporate spirituality into daily
life. All faiths, paths, backgrounds. Query with SASE to: Hummingbird Press (was Stoner Press), POB 8116, Santa Rosa, CA
95407.
SPINSTERS INK is seeking feminist writing by women of color- full-length novels and non-fiction works. For more info: POB
300170, Dept. C, Minneapolis, MN 55403, (612) 377-0287.

110 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

THE PAT PARKER MEMORIAL POETRY AWARD is open for
submissions from May I-July 31. Full-length manuscripts are
considered between Jan I-April 30. For fees and guidelines, send
SASE to Woman in the Moon Publications, POB 2087-NR,
Cupertino, CA 95014-1466 (new address"!).
EVENTS/ORGANIZING/CONFERENCES/RETREATSLESBIAN SEPARATIST ANNUAL GATHERING for femaleborn, nonsadomasochist Lesbian Separatists from around theworld, October 7-10, Santa Cruz, CA. For more info & pre-registration: The Annual Gathering, POB 21475, Oakland, CA 94620;
specify print, braille or cassette.
NATIONAL LESBIAN CONFERENCE & FESTIVAL, July 9-17,
1994, Brisbane, Australia. Write for info: POB 211, Red Hill, QLD
4059 Australia.
4TH REGIONAL CONFERENCE OF LESBIANS, GAY MEN,BISEXUALS AND FRIENDS is the first international event of its
kind to be held in Israel, sponsored by The Society for the Protection of Personal Rights and the World Congress of Gay andLesbian Jewish Organizations. Givat Haviva, June 2-4, 1994. SPPR,
POB 37604, Tel Aviv 61375 Israel (Fax: 972-3-525341) for info.
6th INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST BOOK FAIR focuses on Indigenous, Asian & Pacific Writing. July 27th-31st, 1994,
Melbourne, Australia. Write: 6th IFBF, GPO Box 2681 X,
Melbourne, Australia 3001 for more info.
3rd INTERNATIONAL WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE, July 1-10, Adelaide, South Australia, over 32 countries
represented. ICMS, POB 8102 Hindley St., Adelaide SA 5000
Australia for more info.
4TH ANNUAL WOMEN'S STUDIES CONFERENCE at S. Conn.
State Univ., 'Women's Voices/Women's Powers: Theory, Action,
Transformation" is seeking session proposals by June 10 for Oct
1-2, 1994 conf. Women's Studies Program, SCSU, 501 CrescentSt., New Haven, CT 06515 for more info.
GAY GAMES open in NY June 18, 1994. Federation of Gay Games,
584 Castro St., Ste 343, SF, CA 94114 for more info.

Spring/Summer 1994 111

OLOC - Old Lesbians Organizing for Change helps form newgroups of lesbians over 60, provides ageism education, stimulates existing groups to confront ageism. Contact: OLOC, POB
980422, Houston, TX 77098.
COTTAGES AT HEDGEBROOK - A Retreat for Women Writers provides free cottages and meals for accepted writers for astay of up to three months. Application deadlines: April 1 andOct. 1. For applications: 2197 E. Millman Rd., Langley, WA 98260.
INTERNATIONAL MARCH on the UN to Affirm the Human
Rights of Lesbian and Gay People, June 26, 1994, called by theInternational Lesbian and Gay Assoc. OLGA) & U.S. organizers
Stonewall 25. Much more info: Stonew~1l25, 208 W. 13th St., NY,
NY 10011-7799.
(AD)VENTURESYELLOW BIRCH FARM. Small cottage on working farm in
Downeast Maine. Beautiful, remote, unspoiled Cobscook Bay.
B&B or weekly rental. Brochure, 207/726-5807.
LESBIAN ART RETREAT on beautiful Oregon Coast. Toxicfree, safe, creative environment in a rural setting. $175/week
includes meals with other working artists, separate living andstudio spaces. Private instruction available. RIVERLAND, PO
Box 156, Beaver OR 97108503/398-5223.
SALLIE & EILEEN'S PLACE, vacation cabins for women, in thewoods. Mendocino, CA (707)937-2028.
LESBIAN PARADISE! With 20 charming rooms, 100 mountainacres, pool, hot tub, hiking/ skiing trails, yummy breakfasts, peace
and privacy. We're your perfect vacation choice year round! HIGHLANDS INN, Box 1185R, Bethlehem, NH 03574 (603) 869-3978.
BUSINESSESINTRO TO CULTURAL SKIT-ZO-FRENIA is a 10 minute experimental film exploring the raw-edge of being ''Black Enough" asa Lesbian/Gay of Color, by Jamika Ajalon, available through
Third World Newsreel, 335 W. 38th St., 5th Floor, NY, NY 10018.

112 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

A SIMPLE MATTER OF JUSTICE 57 min. official video of the 1993
March on Washington, by JEB. $28.50, inc. shipping from
Moonforce Media, POB 2934, ~ashington, DC 20013.
RED RIVER, 100% Cotton Menstrual Pads, comfortable, ecological, economical. Made by Land Dykes. Write for brochure:
Red River, Box 130, Serafina, NM 87569.
DYKE TV - some cables carry it but you can get it through the
mail: 4 shows for $75. For more info: DYKE TV/SANG FROID,
POB 88, NY, NY 10002-9998.
30 FILMS AND VIDEOS ABOUT WOMEN are available fromFirst Run/Icarus Films, 153 Waverly Place, 6th Floor, NY, NY
10014,800-876-1710 - write or call for catalog.
SUPPORT
SPINSTERHAVEN, INC., a retirement haven for older women
and women with disabilities, promoting physical, cultural andspiritual well-being of women. Membership info and donations, PO Box 718, Fayetteville, AR 7270l.
SHE - Sister Homelands on Earth has purchased its first two
acres - Saguaro Sisterland - to primarily provide accessible
space for lesbians with mobility/or allergy/chemical sensitivity
disabilities and low-income wimmin. Money and support services are critical to SHE's survival- write to SHE at POB 5285,
Tucson, AZ 85703, inc. SASE for reply.
THE LABYRIS PROJECT: Helping Lesbians Heal from Incest wants a safe home for all lesbians having trouble surviving due
to incest memories, as well as a meeting place for local survivors.
Community-based, holistic, realistic, feminist healing. Send
checks or SASE for info: New Mexico REEF /Labyris Project, POB
40097, Albuquerque, NM 87196.
LAVENDER L.E.A.F. is the Lesbian Emergency Action Fund ofmoney given anonymously, available to any S.F. or Alameda
County (CA) woman-born lesbian of poverty or working classbackground who needs it. Lavender L.E.A.F.'s long-term goal is
to diminish economic disparities among lesbians. Send checks,
queries to: L. Leaf, POB 20921, Oakland, CA 94620.

Spring/Summer 1994 113

WOMYN'S BRAILLE' PRESS - desperately needs money tocontinue, as well as volunteers to read and type. WBP provides
over 750 titles to blind, partially sighted and print disabled women,
and publishes a great newsletter. Tax-deductible donations, queries
to: WBP, POB 8475, Minneapolis, MN 55408, 612/ 872-4352.
WHIPTAIL WOMYN'S COLLECTIVE provides a womyn-only
dyke-identified, drug-smoke-alcohol free space in S.F. & needs
all the help it can get. Send $, questions, energy to: 3543 18th St.
Box #29, SE CA 94110.
LESBIANS IN CRITICAL NEED have been sending us increasing
numbers of requests to run announcements for their personal
funds. Instead of printing these individual appeals, we urge you tocontribute frequently and generously to local organizations. Imagine it as if we justtold you your childhood bestfriend, your favorite
gym teacher, an admired dyke activist or your first lover had
metastatic cancer and couldn't pay the doctor bills; or had developed E.I., could no longer leave her house and had no way to get
orpay for groceries. Then make a contribution to Lavender L.E.A.F.,
The Dykefund, the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic, The Women's Cancer Resource Center (these are Bay Area resources, find the ones inyour community). We need full support networks as well as money- dykes willing to shop, drive, talk, listen, organize.
INMEMORIAM
GEe (Gwen) Elliot, of Oakland (formerly of NYC), passed on January 4, 1994. The cause of death has not yet been determined. She
was a brave and inspirational lesbian. This is to let her friends
everywhere know and to honor her life. -JEB.

AD RATES
Deadline for #53, Old Lesbians: May 10, 1994 (Pub: Aug. '94).

Classified: 40¢ a word, $5 minimum.
Display: $200 whole page, $100 half, $75 third, $50 quarter, $35 2x2,
for camera ready copy. Write for other deadlines & size sheet.

114 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

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Spring/Summer 1994 115{eKITCHEN TABLE: Women of Color Press
Help keep Kitchen Table alive for the
next generation of feminists of color
Dear Sisters,
When Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was started by Audre
Lorde and Barbara Smith in 1980, its founders pledged that it would
become an institution. Thirteen years later Kitchen Table is still alive
and is the only u.S. publisher for women of color. But in these hardtimes, there is no guarantee that Kitchen Table will always be here,
unless women nationwide take an active part in securing its future.
As you know, the Press has published award winning classics like
This Bridge Called My Back, Home Girls, and Cuentos; you may notknow that it has always functioned as a service organization andpolitical support network for feminists and lesbians of color as well.
If it were not for publisher Barbara Smith's years of leadership andunsalaried work, the Press would not have survived. Because we
cherish Kitchen Table, we believe its existence should not depend
upon individual sacrifice. We want the Press to grow and gain accessto resources that will enable it to sustain its high quality work. We
are committed to raising the funds to accomplish these goals.
We the undersigned take responsibility for preserving Kitchen Table
and the work that has given so many of us the strength, the vision,and the hope to fight for our lives and the lives of those we love. We
urge you to join us, for Kitchen Table Press' survival depends on us
all. Thank you in advance for your generosity.
Dorothy Abbott, Tania Abdulahad, Mary Ader, Cathy Cohen, Gloria DeSole,Bea Gates, Jaime Grant, Naomi Jaffe, Joo Hyun Kan{J, Laura Kaplan, Andrea
Lockett, Judith McDaniel, Helen Ouan, Vickie Smith

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116 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

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Radical , intense and wide-ranging.
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omen Writing is fill ed wi th poctry , prose,novel and play excer pts, short fi cti on, lifcwr it ing anQ experiment al works.

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sinister wisdom
Some Current & Back Issues#51 An open issue where lesbians lay claim to our lives.
#50 Not The Ethics Issue we had planned (read it to find out why). But there isgreat new work on ethics and other themes. Guest edited by Caryatis Cardea andSauda Burch.
#49 The Lesbian Body: here's where flesh and theory meet - Includes lesbians of color, roles, disability, body image, fat, sex, menopause and more.
#48 Lesbian Resistance: investigations into the activist heart of our courage- including messages from dykes in prison.
#47 Lesbians of Color: Tellin' It Like It Tis'. Special 160-page issue edited bylesbians of color, includes new work in all !orms - essential reading!
#46 Dyke Lives. New, international fiction and poetry.
#45 Lesbians and Class. The first issue edited entirely by poor and working classdykes includes analysis, personal narrative, poetry, fiction & a graffiti wall.
#43/44 The 15th Anniversary Retrospective. 368 pages, over 90 lesbians' workfrom the second wave. An amazing, indispensable source collection!
#42 Lesbian Voices. Our first intentional all-lesbian issue includes legal theory,
racism, Israel, hair, surgery, the effects of rape on relationships, much more.
#41 Italian-American Women's Issue. Guest edited by Denise Leto & Janet Capone.
#40 Special Focus on Friendship. Essays, fiction, editorial discussion transcript.
#36 Special Focus on Surviving Psychiatric AssaulVCreating Emotional Well
Being in our Communities. Includes testimony, prose, poetry and essays.
#35 Passing. Investigations into trying to appear other than we are.
#34 Special Focus on Lesbian Visions, Fantasy, SciFi. Includes work on
disability, separatism, building and transformation.
#33 Special Focus on Wisdom. Lesbians of Color, non-violence, war stories,
incest, leaving a will, assimilation & The Real Fat Womon Poems.
#32 Special Focus on Illness, Death, Mourning, Healing, the disappeared,
hunting season, dealing with suicide, cancer, new ritual observances.
#31 Special Focus on Sex and Fiction, coming out in the south, Found Goddesses.
#28 Special Focus on Women & Work; Body Image, Size & Eating.
#26 Special Issue: To Go To Berbir by Jill Drew, a book-length journal written
by an American nurse working in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion.
#21 Separatism revisited, Jewish survival & defiance, Black lesbian writing,photos of dykes in drag, suicide, bars, letters about anti-Semitism.

We recently found a case of slightly damaged copies of #39, On Disability ($5 ea.).
Sinister Wisdom #1-19, 27, 37 & 38 are out of print. Photocopies can be provided$5 for the first article, $1 for each add. in the same order ($17 for a whole issue).
Allow one month for delivery.

K ~ 7D{
120 sinister wisdom #52 - Allies

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All written work should be mailed flat (not folded), with your name andaddress on each page. Submissions may be in any style or form, or
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I want and need to know why
and how dykes act as all ies toeach other. I want to hearstories, examples, successes
and even failures. I need thisissue for myself: to learn how to
be an ally to others and as aresource to women who aretrying to be good allies to me.
-Jamie Lee Evans$5