Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving Summary and Analysis

At the beginning of Scratching the Surface, Audre Lorde defines four words—racism, sexism, heterosexism, and homophobia—and then identifies all four as "forms of human blindness" (p. 45). This blindness, Lorde says, might be remedied through the realization that differences are enriching rather than threatening. She talks about the American black community in this context, saying that even within that community, members have learned to distrust one another, mainly in that black men as a group often view black women as threatening if insubordinate. She talks about instances in which black women have been actively discouraged from coming together, including an example of a New York state college in the 1970s where black women attempted to come together to...