17 pages • 34 minutes read
Hanging Fire
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Background
Biographical Context: Audre Lorde and Colorism
Audre Lorde had a difficult relationship with her parents, especially her mother. In her essay “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” Audre Lorde discusses her mother’s colorism—favoritism based on skin tone. Audre’s mother, Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, and Audre’s sisters all had lighter skin than Audre, and this led to preferential treatment in their family home. Audre’s father, Frederick Byron Lorde, was the only one in the family who had darker skin than Audre. Linda was born in the West Indies, but could pass for white. Audre writes, “I was always jealous of my sisters because my mother thought they were such good girls, whereas I was bad, always in trouble […] Did bad mean Black?” (Sister Outsider 149). This particular family dynamic—the hierarchy of Audre’s mother based on color—is hinted at in “Hanging Fire.”
In both her essay and her poem, Audre discusses her knees. In “Eye to Eye,” she writes, “And, oh, the sins of my dark elbows and knees” (Sister Outsider 149). This can be compared to the lines “how come my knees are / always so ashy” (Lines 6-7) in “Hanging Fire.” Audre is ashamed of how her knees look because of her mother’s colorism. Furthermore, the repeated symbol of the closed bedroom door in “Hanging Fire” reveals more about the family dynamic. One thing it represents is her mother’s silence. In “Eye to Eye,” Audre writes that her mother “disarmed me with her silences” (Sister Outsider 149). These silences appear multiple times in “Hanging Fire”—Audre repeats the lines about her mother at the end of each stanza, emphasizing the sense of estrangement between them.
Sociopolitical Context: Intersectional Feminism
Audre Lorde was an intersectional feminist, meaning that she wrote about the intersections of sexism with racism and classism. In her introduction to The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, Roxanne Gay describes Lorde’s “manifesto urging women toward a more radical feminism” and demanding that white feminists “seriously engage with and acknowledge Black women’s intellectual labor” (Gay, Roxanne. “The Legacy of Audrey Lorde.” The Paris Review, 17 Sept. 2020). Lorde’s open letter was published in 1979, a year after “Hanging Fire” was published. She was responding to issues within the feminist movement of the 1970s, as Lorde believed that mainstream feminism did not adequately consider or highlight the issues facing women of color. Many writers have discussed these issues, including the 1977 Combahee River Collective—which Lorde was a part of—and Michele Wallace. The former created a National Black Feminist Organization as an alternative to white-dominated feminist organizations.
Other women, like Alice Walker, adopted the term “Womanism” as an alternative to “white feminism.” While Black women had long noticed that white feminists did not include anti-racism as a central part of their activism, they also became increasingly alienated by how white feminists often did not credit Black women for their activism and organizing. Furthermore, white feminists often did not address class-based concerns, which generally affect people of color more than white people.
“Hanging Fire” uses a Black feminist lens to examine the disparity between the experiences of Black teenagers and white teenagers. The speaker, a young Lorde, repeatedly emphasizes that she fears for her life as a Black teenager. This is still an incredibly relevant poem, as Black teenagers are still often disproportionately affected by violence compared to their white peers.
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By Audre Lorde
