Audrey Lorde: The Cancer Journals and Multiple Stigma

 example of multiple stigma STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS FOR BLACK YOUTH

RACE, ILLNESS (Cancer), SEXUALITY, OBESITY

Published in 1980, this a chronicle of poet Audre Lorde’s experience with breast cancer. She began writing journal entries a few months after her mastectomy.Lorde's eventually died from a recurrence of breast cancer.

When The Cancer Journals was published in 1980, Audre Lorde was already an important feminist poet. She had often criticized the popular feminist movement for focusing exclusively on white women, and she insisted on talking about race and class as compounding forms of oppression (STIGMA), including the racist assumptions white women brought to their feminism.

Audre Lorde asks in The Cancer Journals where she can find a model of how to deal with cancer, an understanding or a guide. She also questions Western medicine and asserts that women should control their own health and healing.

Race & Stigma:

• Racial stigma and inequality The concept of an enduring racial stigma afflicting African Americans suggests that any successful and consistent theory of racial inequality must account for the processes that systematically block realization of their human potential. 
• The rewards accruing to the members of a disadvantaged group, given their productivity, are lower than the rewards garnered by others (call this the reward bias argument). 
• Reward bias (“racial discrimination”) in the public sphere is a relatively straightforward, universally recognized problem. 
• Owing to processes unrelated to their innate capabilities, members of the disadvantaged group lack opportunities to realize their productive potential (call this the development bias argument).
• Developmental Bias: racial disparity in developmental opportunities is often neglected moral problem that gives rise to unavoidable conflicts between cherished values and challenges settled intuitions about social justice. 

Sexuality & Stigma

There are several manifestations of sexual stigma these have been identified as enacted sexual stigma, felt sexual stigma and internalized sexual stigma. (based on Goffman)

• Enacted sexual stigma involves an act of discrimination or violence towards members of a sexual minority group. 
• This type of sexual stigma is not reserved for only members of the group but can be directed to the heterosexual family and friends of the individual or even towards those who allied themselves with the minority group.(contagious nature of stigma)
• This is referred to as a courtesy stigma.
• Felt sexual stigma consists of the apprehensiveness that one might have of being labeled with a sexual stigma based on the views and stereotypes that society has placed on sexual minority members. 
• This type of stigma is most likely to affect behavior because of the wide range of individuals that may be influenced by it. 
• An individual may begin to avoid situations where a stigma could be enacted or by avoiding the majority group overall.
•  Felt stigma can be a motivation to confirm a non-stigmatized status (PASS) instead of possibly having their sexuality questioned.
• Internalized sexual stigma becomes a part of a person’s self-identity as they begin to accept a sexual stigma they feel represents their belief system. 
• Their self-concept supports the idea of a particular stigma that society has created through negative or offensive remarks or actions, which consequently creates negative attitudes toward their own personality and sexuality. 
• In other words, the stigmatized individual begins to believe the negative views held against them, and begin to conform to common stereotypes.

Women's Health & Empowerment: "Cancer Inc."

Audre Lorde writes that battling despair means surviving and fighting, and it  means knowing that her work is part of a continuum of women’s work. 

• She questions the powerful medical establishment's insistence on prosthetics and other advances to help people look “normal.” (REFUSES TO COVER OR PASS)
• Believes that an insistence on being physically normal interferes with a woman’s ability to heal. 
• Wants to see women who with cancer as proud survivors

Silence is the Enemy:

Audre Lorde writes that when she was told her tumor was probably malignant she began contemplating her mortality. 

• She found that what she most regretted were her silences. 
• The book transforms silence, turning it into words and thus action.

Blaming the Victim = must hide masectomy

The American Cancer Society Or There Is More Than One Way to Skin a Coon - Poem by Audre Lorde

Of all the ways in which this country
Prints its death upon me
Selling me cigarettes is one of the most certain.
Yet every day I watch my son digging
ConEdison GeneralMotors GarbageDisposal
Out of his nose as he watches a 3 second spot
On How To Stop Smoking
And it makes me sick to my stomach.
For it is not by cigarettes
That you intend to destroy my children.

Not even by the cold white light of moon-walks
While half the boys I knew
Are doomed to quicker trips by a different capsule;
No, the american cancer destroys
By seductive and reluctant admission
For instance
Black women no longer give birth through their ears
And therefore must have A Monthly Need For Iron:
For instance
Our Pearly teeth are not racially insured
And therefore must be Gleemed For Fewer Cavities:
For instance
Even though all astronauts are white
Perhaps Black People can develop
Some of those human attributes
Requiring
Dried dog food frozen coffee instant oatmeal
Depilatories deodorants detergents
And other assorted plastic.

And this is the surest sign I know
That the american cancer society is dying- -
It has started to dump its symbols onto Black People
Convincing proof that those symbols are now useless
And far more lethal than emphysema.
___________

A Litany for Survival - Poem by Audre Lorde

'For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
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 stomachs 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 

Intersectional Stigma: 

• Has effects on mental and physical health but particularly mental health
• need to work through multiple layers of challenges
• trade on lesser stigma (admit to it) and deny other more damaging stigma
• must focus on what the cause of discrimination is