206 Jewelle Gomez / In Silence, Giving Tongue'"

Somewhere deep inside I think I believed that neither my grandmothernor my mother would ever censure my choices. Neither had actuallyraised me; my great-grandmother had done that , and she had been asteely barricade against any encroachment on our personal freedoms andshe'd never disapproved out loud of anything T'd done.

But it was not enough to have an unabashed admir ation for thesewomen. It is one thing to have pride in how they" d so graciously survivedin spite of the odds against them. It was something else to be standing ina Times Square movie theater faced with the chance to say "it" out loudand risk the loss of their briliiant and benevolent smiles.

My mother had started reading the graffiUi written on the wall of thebathroom stall. We hooted at each ofher dramatic renderings. Then shesaid (not breaking her rhythm since we all know timing is everything),"Here.'s one I haven"t seen before-'DYKES UNITE'." There was thatprofound silence again, as if the frames of my life had ground to a hall.We were in a freeze-frame and options played themselves out in my headin rapid succession: Say nothing? Say something? Say what?

I laughed and said, "Yeah , but have you seen the rubber stamp on mydesk at home?"

"No," said my mother with a slight bit of puzzlement. "What does itsay?"

"1 saw it," my grandmother called out from her stall. "It says: 'LesbianMoney!'"

"What?""Lesbian Money," Lydia repeated."1 just stamp it on my big bilis," I said tentatively , and we all screamed

with laughter The other woman at the sinks tried to pretend we didn'texist.

Since then there has been little discussion. There have been sornemoments of awkwardness, usually in social situations where they feeluncertain. Although we have not explored the "it," the shift in ourrelationship is clear. When I go home it is with my lover and she isreceived as such. I was lucky. My family was as relieved as I to finallyknow who I was.

From Testimonies: A Collection of Lesbian Coming Out Stories

In Silence, Giving Tongue / bell hooks 207

Talking Bacl, bell hooks

In the world of the southern black community I grew up in, "back talk"and "talking hack" meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure. Itmeant daring to disagree and sometimes it just meant having an opinion.In the "old school ," children were meant to be seen and not heard. Mygreat-grandparents, grandparents, and parents were all from the oldschool. To make yourself heard if you were a child was to invitepunishment, the hack-hand lick, the sla~oss thatace that would catchyou unaware , or the feel of switches stingin¡fY'6fu arms and legs.

To speak then when one witt"mr spoken to was a courageous act-anact of risk and daring. And yet it was hard not to speak in warm roomswhere heated discussions began at the crack of dawn, women's voicesfilling the air , givingorders, making threats, fussing. Black men may haveexcelled in the art of poetic preaching in the male-dominated church, butin the church of the home, where the everyday rules of how to live andhow to act were estahlished , it was black women who preached. Tpet;,fblack women spoke in a language so rich, so poetic, that it felt t~ftKt')being shut off from Iife, sm. to death if one were not allowedto

. . c.c.~&:>.Ppartrcipate. c~'¡;v

It was in that world of woman ta~ temen were often silent , oftenabsent) that was born in me the ~ to speak, to have a voice,. ~dnot just any voice but one that could be identified as belbri'giilget~l"me~To make my ~oice, I had to speak, to hear myself talk-and talk Idid-da~tJgino and out of grown folks' conversations and dialogues,answering questions that were not directed at me, endlessly askingquestions, making speeclI_~s\iw~~~~' the punishments for theseacts of speech seemed léiUtless. ey were intended to silence me-thechild-and more particularly the girl child. Had I been a boy, they mighthave encouraged me to speak believing that I might someday be called topreach, There was no "calling" for talking girls, no legitimized rewardedspeech. The punishments I received for "talking back" were intended tosuppress all possibility that I would create my own speech. That speechwas to be suppressed so that the "right speech of wornanhood" wouldemerge.

Within feminist circles, silence is often seen as the sexist "right speechof womanhood" -the sign of woman' s submission to patriarchal author-ity. This emphasis on woman' s silence may be an accurate rememberingof what has taken place in the households of women from WASPbackgrounds in the United States, but in black communities (and diverseethnic communities), women have not been silent. Their voices can be

208 bell hooks / In Silence, Giving Tongue

heard. Certainly for black women, our struggle has notJ?~e..!L!Qemergefrom silence into speech but to change the nature and direction of ourspeech, to make a speech that compels listeners ..-one_that is heard.· .ÜU"r speech , ''the right speech of womanhood," was ofte;;the soliloquy,

the talking into thin air, the talking to ears that do not hear you-thetalk that is simply not lis tened to. Unlike the black male preacher whosespeech was to be heard, who was to be listened to, whose words were tobe remembered, the voices of black women-giving orders, makingthreats, fussing-could be tuned out, could become a kind ofbackgroundmusic, audible but not acknowledged as significant speech. Dialogue-thesharing of speech and recognition-took place not between mother andchild or mother and male authority figure but among black women. 1canremember watching fascinated as our mother talked with her mother,sisters, and women friends. The intimacy and intensity of their speech-the satisfaction they received from talking to one another, the pleasure,the joyo It was in this world of woman speech, loud talk, angry words,women with tongues quick and sharp, tender sweet tongues, touchingour world with their words, that 1made speech my birthright-and theright to voice, to authorship, a privile el would not be denied. It was int at world and because of it that 1carne to ream of writing, to write.

Writing was a way to capture speech, to hold onto it , keep it close. Andso 1 wrote down bit s and pieces of conversations, confessing in cheapdiaries that soon~fell apart from too much handling, expressing the. . f A ~L h (A'J\"'v:'+..rA. f h f 1 1 .mtensity o my's row, t e an~Ulsh o speec - or was a ways saymgthe wrong thing, asking the wrong questions. 1 could not confine myspeech to the necessary corners and concerns ofllfe. 1lii~",!~~~r';::itingsunder my bed, in pillow stuffings, among faded underweár" When mysisters found and read them, they ridiculed and mocked me-poking fun.1felt violated, 'liffii?rn~~as ifthe secret parts ofmy selfhadbeen exposed,brought into the open, and hung like newly clean laundry, out in the airfor everyone to see. The fear of exposure, the fear that one's deepestemotions and innermost thoughts will be dismissed as mere nonsense, feltby so many young girls ~ing diaries, holding and hiding speech, seemsto me now one of the baxr!~that women have always needed and stillneed to destr~y so that we are no longer pushed into secrecy or silence.

lfeéPite ~;f~elings of violation, of exposure, 1continued to speak andwrite, choosing my hiding places well, lear_nil~J~,J0destroy work when nosafe place could be found. 1 was never tiUglir absolute silence, 1 wastaught that it was important to speak but to talk a talk t.h.~at was in itself

'l!"~~ c:f<.! -\ '[CUc.cw ha silence. Taught to speak and yet beware of the 9~tl".ayal of too mucheard speech, 1 experienced intense confusion and deep anxiety in myefforts to speak and wri e. Reciting poems at Sunday afternoon churchservice might be ~~t ea. Writing a poem (when one's time could be"better" spent sweeping, ironing, learning to cook) was luxurious activity,indulged in at the expense of others. Questioning authority, raising issues

In Silence, Giving Tongue / bell hooks 209

that were not deemed appropriate subjects brought pain, punishments-like telling mama 1 wanted to die before her beca use 1 could not livewithout her-that was crazy talk, crazy speech, the kind that would leadyou to end up in a mental institution. "Little girl," 1 would be told, "ifyou don't stop all this crazy talk and crazy acting you are going to endup right out there at Western State."

Madness, not just physical abuse, was the punishment for too muchtalk if you were female. Yet even as this fear of madness haunted me,hanging over my writing like a monstrous shadow, 1 could not stop thewords, making thought, writing speech. For this terrible madness which1feared, which 1was sure was the destiny of daring women born to intensespeech (after all, the authorities emphasized this point daily), was not asthreatening as imposed silence, as suppressed speech.

Safety and sanity were to be sacrificed if 1was to experience defiantspeech. Though 1 risked them both, deep-seated fears and anxietiescharacterized my childhood days. 1wouldgeak but 1would not ride abike, play hardball, or hold the ~y ¡i\t(;n. Writing about the ways weare traumatized in our growing-up years, psychoanalyst Alice Millermakes the point in For Your Own Good that it is not clear why childhoodwounds become for some folk an opportunity to grow, to move forwardrather than backward in the process of self-realization. Certainly, when1 reflect on the trials of my growing-up years, the many punishl1l~p.ts, 1can see now that in resistance 1learned to be vigilant in the n()lüi:t~entof my spirit, to be tough, to courageously protect that spirit from forcesth~t would break it.

While punishing me, my parents often spoke about the necessity ofbreaking my spirit. Now when 1ponder the silences, the voices that arenot heard, the voices of those wounded and/or oppressed individuals whodo not speak or write, 1contempla te the acts of persecution, torture-theterrorism that breaks spirits, that makes creativity impossible. ~itethese words to bear witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in anysituation of domin~tion (;;~'iiwithii1IitnulylITe); to i!te'streng!1! ,_ªp.dpower that emerges f:t:0IE.§!~.stainedresistance and t;!lepro!.2EJ.ld ~ºnvic-tion iliat..t}iese forces can be healing, can protect, us from dehumanizationand despair.

j.n.J.(CJ-::>c--,

These early trials, wherein 1learned to stand my ground, to keep myspirit intact, c~ividly to mind after 1published Ain 't1A Woman andthe book was sharply and harshly criticized. While 1 had expected aclima te of critical dialogue, 1was not expecting a critical avalanche thathad the power in its intensity to crush the spirit, to push one into silence.Since that time, 1have heard stories about black women, about womenof color, who write and publish (even when the work is quite successful)having nervous breakdowns, being made mad because they cannot bearthe harsh responses offamily, friends, and unknown critics, or becomingsilent, unproductive. Surely, the absence of a humane critical response

210 bell hooks / In Silence, Giving Tongue

has tremendous impact on the writer from any oppressed, colonizedgroup who endeavors to speak. Eor us, true. speaking~not solel~expression of creative power; it is an act of resistance, a political gesturethat chaIrengespoliticsofaoiñirÚlhon iliafWoulareñaer us nameless ;ndv"j}leete·sS:-AsSüch,it is a coürageousact==as sucli-;-itrepresents a threat.To tlíose who wield oppressive power, that which is threatening musanecessarily be wiped out, annihilated, silenced.

Recently, efforts by black women writers to caIl attention to our workserve to highlight both our presence and absence. Whenever I perusewomen's bookstores, I am struck not by the rapidly growing body offeminist writing by black women, but by the paucity of availablepublished material. Those of us who write and are published remain fewin number. The context of silence is varied and multi-dimensional. Mostobvious are the ways racism, sexism, and class exploitation act tosuppress and silence. Less obvious are the inner struggles, the effortsmade to gain the necessary confidence to write, to re-write, to fuIlydevelop craft and skill-and the extent to which such efforts fail.

Although I have wanted writing to be my life-work since childhood, ithas been difficult for me to claim "writer" as part of that which identifiesand shapes my everyday reality. Even after publishing books, I wouldoften speak of wanting to be a writer as though these works did not existoAnd though I would be told, "you are a writer," I was not yet ready tofuIly affirm this truth. Part of myself was still held captive by domineeringforces of history, of familiallife that had charted a map of silence, ofright speech. I had not completely let go of the fear of saying the wrongthing, of heingpunished. S~~ewlÍere in the deep recesses ofrny mind, Ibelieved I could avoid both responsibility and punishment if I did notdeclare myself a writer.

One of the many reasons I chose to write using the pseudonym beIlhooks, a family name (mother to Sarah Oldham, grandmother to RosaBeIl Oldham, great-grandmother to me), was to construct a writer-iden-tity that would chaIlenge and subdue aIl impulses leading me away fromspeech into silence. I was a young girl buying bubble gum at the cornerstore when I first really heard the full name bell hooks. I had just "talkedback" to a grown persono Even now I can recall the surprised look, themocking tones that informed me I must be kin to beIl hooks-a sharp-tongued woman, a woman who spoke her mind, .a ~~l!lan who ~~tafraid to talk back. I claimed this legacy of defiance, of wiIl, of courage,affirming my link to female ancestors who were bold and daring in theirspeech. Unlike my bold and daring mother and grandmother, who werenot supportive of talking back, even though they were assertive andpowerful in their speech, bell hooks as I discovered, claimed, andinvented her was my ally, my support.

That initial act of talking back outside the home was empowering. Itwas the first of many acts of defiant speech that would make it possible

In Silence, Giving Tongue / bell hooks 211

for me to emerge as an independent thinker and writer. In retrospect,"talking back" became for me a rite of initiation, testing my courage,strengthening my commitment, preparing me for the days ahead-thedays when writing, rejection notices, periods of silence, publication,ongoing development seem impossible but necessary.

Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, theexploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture ofdefiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible. It isthat act of speech, of "talking back," that is no mere gesture of e~words, that is t~e-~~"i-_é;i~2n;[Q.u.rmovement from object to subject-theliEerated voice.--- ~-..•.....•.•..... ,'~

From Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black