A Little Inspiration from Audre Lorde

Excerpt from "A Litany for Survival"

For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomach are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

Our Profile Picture

The profile picture will change from time to time based on the group's preference. The current profile picture is an image that was created by Synthia Saint James, entitled Brilliance. I thought that this was a good representation of the group because it pictures mainly women/femmes, and a few men/masculine/butch characters. One of Saint James' trademarks is the lack of facial characteristics in her paintings. I like this aspect of her work because it allows the viewer the luxury of imagining facial characteristics for the figures.

Saint James includes multiple hues and hair colors to denote racial difference and age. These people gather together and look up to a woman with grey hair. At the bottom of the image are smaller figures, young people who also look up, but there is also a girl holding a book, who seems to be glancing up from her reading to listen. This is what I think our group is about, respecting our feminist foremothers and communities of origin, but also engaging in our scholarly work. What the image does not depict, is the immense struggle that it takes to do all of that simultaneously. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail.

Finally, I like the title of the piece "Brilliance" because it defies Western notions of brilliance and intelligence. Western philosophers, of the dead white man variety, have long touted that brilliance and intelligence are individual pursuits to be cultivated alone--solemnly, but this image illustrates that knowledge, brilliance, and intelligence are created in the context of a community. This way we do not forget that we are not here solely for personal advancement, rather we are here to advance the cause of social justice, in our communities and around the world.

Who We Are

Our mission is simple: to get together informally, to provide support for each other as students and as instructors, to exchange ideas and experiences, and to learn from each other. In a predominantly white university, and with the fast-pace of graduate life, we recognize the importance of a friendly social and pedagogical community that attends to our particular interests and needs as graduate women of color. It is also a political forum through which we can push for more women of color spaces, and more transnational feminist and women of color centered courses, on the graduate and undergraduate levels.

And though the seed of this caucus may have started at the women's studies department, we aim to reach out to more women, queer, and transpeople of color in other departments at OSU, particularly departments such as African and African American Studies, Comp. Studies, Latin American Studies, Indian American Studies, and others.