On December 28, 1977, Audre Lorde delivered “The Transformation of Silence Into Language” at the Lesbian and Literature panel at the annual Modern Language Association conference. Later, the speech appeared in The Cancer Journals, a book where Lorde details her experience with breast cancer and her mastectomy. It’s a book where Lorde reflects upon her own experiences and where she also provides a distinctly intersectional framework where she details the impacts of breast cancer and gendered stereotypes on her as a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” but also how those things impact all women, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or occupation.

A key thread running throughout “The Transformation of Silence Into Language” is the building of bridges, the building of connections between women, specifically, that tear down barriers and create unity. As a white, male, heterosexual, cisgender person, I could ask, “Why should I read a book or a speech by someone like Lorde?” She answers that question in her speech, pointing out, as James Baldwin succinctly put it too, when he said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” When we start to read, when we start to listen, we see we have much more in common than we think.

To highlight our similarities, one must speak into the silence, and the recipient must be willing to listen to the words that arise. At the start of her speech, Lorde says, “I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” Her cancer diagnosis made her think about her own mortality, the fact that one day, she will die, just as well all will one day. She thought about how she had lived in fear of speaking up at times, how she had lived in silence. However, her diagnosis led her speak into the silences because, as she says, “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”

Speaking into the silence makes the invisible visible, it illuminates the individual, and this illumination, while liberating, also creates backlash. Lorde continues by noting, “And of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger.” When one speaks into the silence, they discover something about themselves; they confront themselves, and that confrontation can be disorienting and frightening, especially when one doesn’t like what stares back at them.

Along with “self-revelation,” speaking into the silence brings visibility and attacks. Even if, as Lorde puts it, “we fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live,” one must speak into the silence and build community with others. Through community and action change occurs. Through community and action we dismantle barriers that have been erected for centuries. Through community and action we, as Lorde puts it, “recognize and solve our problems together.”

All of this is important, and it leads me back to my initial question about why I should even care about reading Lorde or any author who does not match my identity. In her speech and The Cancer Journals, Lorde repeatedly points out the importance of speaking into the silence, providing her voice to the narrative. She writes about whether or not to have a prosthesis following her mastectomy and how that decision and discussion went against “societal” standards, but also how her voice needed to be heard. She writes about her fears of intimacy following her mastectomy and how other women have the same fears. She writes not just for herself but for others, providing a voice to their experiences. She does what Carmen Maria Machado does with her memoir In The Dream House where Machado speaks into the silence about her own experiences in a queer domestic abusive relationship.

It is one thing for Lorde, Machado, and others to speak into the silence, but as we know it is another for us to hear them. Reading is an active practice. It is a practice that requires intentionality. Lorde tells her audience that when individuals speak into the silence, lifting their voices, “we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.” We must actively engage. We must be proactive. Lorde and Machado speak into the silence, but we must find their words.

Again, though, why should I care? I am not a Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet. Why should I care? I should care because Lorde’s and Machado’s experiences, even if I have not experienced them, have pertinence to my life. They are about the human condition. They are about humanity. Lorde argues that “the mockieres of separations” lead us to say that we “can’t possibly teach Black women’s writing — their experience is so different from mine” or ask the question, “She’s a white woman and what could she possibly have to say to me?” To this, Lorde responds, “Yet how many years have you spent teaching Plato and Shakespeare or Proust?”

When we deny ourselves engagement with others, when we reinforce the barriers between us by refusing to seek out those who superficially appear different than ourselves, “we rob,” as Lorde says, “ourselves of ourselves and each other.” We rob ourselves of discovery, of joy, of connection. We rob each other of unity and community. We rob the world of progress because we become siloed, seeing the tip of our noses and nothing beyond them. We strengthen the barriers that continue to separate us. We lose ourselves and each other.

When I taught Machado’s memoir this semester, I had a student comment that they could not relate to In The Dream House due to their gender, race, and sexual orientation. The studen didn’t give anything else beyond this, and the student’s comment made me think of Baldwin and Lorde and myself. It made me think about why I read what I read, why I seek out what I seek out. I seek out and read what I do because I want to tear down the separations and I want to learn. I want to discover myself and others. I want to understand the world around me. I want to be connected to humanity. I don’t want to rob myself and others. I want to enrich myself and others and build a community that will enact change.

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.