S4E07 // Dismantling the master’s house with Audre Lorde - Zuleika Bibi Sheik

Felix & Sofie

Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. This is how poet, writer, thinker and feminist Audre Lorde (1934-1992) described herself. Lorde was an important voice for Black lesbian women and fought against homophobia, sexism and racism throughout her life and work. Lorde was of immense importance to the feminist movement. She addressed the underlying racism of the (predominantly) white feminist movement and wrote about intersectionality long before the term was officially coined. Intersectionality entails that different forms of oppression, like sexism, racism, homophobia, classism and ageism are interrelated and should be analyzed in relation to each other. For instance, Lorde emphasized that she was not only oppressed because she was a woman: she also faced oppression because she was a Black and lesbian woman. That is why Lorde valued the power of difference. By acknowledging our differences, we could find equality instead of equity. Lorde expressed her ideas through poetry and emotional language, in a way that challenged the logics of white and patriarchal society. Lorde became an icon: her ideas, politics and poetry resonated with many marginalized groups. Her famous sentence “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” was extremely influential and formed a starting point for decolonial theory and methodology. Zuleika Bibi Sheik is a decolonial feminist, poet, writer, yogi, activist, teacher and PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Sheik questions the legitimacy and claim of the university as the sole producer of knowledge. Her poetry, short stories and academic writing are positioned in the liminal space where decolonial thought meets Black/Dalit/Chicana feminisms. In her PhD research she refuses the ‘masters tools’ which have been complicit in her/our own dehumanization, opting to collectively cultivate epistemically non-violent methods with other women of colour in the Netherlands instead. // Shownotes \\ YouTube: bit.ly/2TSmGER Tickets: bit.ly/388vnTG Facebook: www.facebook.com/FelixenSofie Website: www.felix-en-sofie.nl/