Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 20:40:39 -0800 (PST) From: Heidi Herman Subject: CHRYSTOS Whenever I hear someone speak (or see someone post) critically of certain groups of people who want to have a space for themselves (in this case, sappho, which is only for women), I always think of the following poem. It's by Chrystos, whose Biography @ the end of her book I will put @ the end of this poem. I'm posting it w/out permission. It is from her 1991 book _Dream On_ (Press Gang Publishers, Vancouver, B.C.) Sorry for the length, but I think it's appropriate to share here... THOSE TEARS of a white woman who came to the group for Women of Color only her grief cut us into guilt while we clutched the straw of this tiny square inch we have which we need so desperately when we need so much more We talked her into leaving which took 10 minutes of our precious 60 Those legion white Lesbians whose feelings are hurt because we have a Lesbians of Color Potluck once a month for 2 hours without them Those tears of the straight woman because we kicked out her boyfriend at the Lesbians only poetry reading where no microphone was provided & the room was much too small for all of us shouting that we were imperialists though I had spent 8 minutes trying to explain to her that an oppressed people cannot oppress their oppressor She ignored me charged into the room weeping & storming taking up 9 minutes of our precious tiny square inch Ah those tears which could be jails, graves, rapists, thieves, thugs those tears which are so puffed up with inappropriate grief Those women who are used to having their tears work rage at us when they don't We are not real Feminists they say We do not love women I yell back with a wet face _Where are our jobs? Our apartments?_ _Our voices in parliament or congress?_ _Where is our safety from beatings, from murder?_ _You cannot even respect us to allow us_ _60 uninterrupted minutes for ourselves_ Your tears are chains Feminism is the right of each woman to claim her own life her own time her own interrupted 60 hours 60 days 60 years No matter how sensitive you are if you are white you are No matter how sensitive you are if you are a man you are We who are not allowed to speak have the right to define our terms our turf These facts are not debatable Give us our inch & we'll hand you a hanky for MAV & DENISE, who guarded the door after the incident at the Lesbian reading & thus, didn't get to hear the poetry AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Born Nov. 7, 1946 off reservation in San Francisco of a Menominee father & a Lithuanian/Alsace-Lorraine mother Self-educated Artist as well as writer Author of _Not Vanishing_ and contributor to many anthologies... Indigenous Land & Treaty Rights Activist, working for the freedom of Leonard Peltier, the Dine Nation at Big Mountain, the Mohawk Nation at Kanehsatake & various other Native Rights causes ...Make words, not war! Besides all this, Chrystos graces the Seattle area with her presence, as she lives on a local island, and is often @ diff. dyke/queer happenings here in Seattle. If anyone wants to flame me, please don't send it to me personally. I work with people who watch everything, and it's hard enough to keep up with the digests when I'm @ work! Heidi