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reviews 199 7A/5 Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women ofColor. Eds. Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldüa. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983 (reprint of edition by Persephone Press, 1981). 261 pp. $8.95 (paper). 7A/5 Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Coloris a coUection ofessays and poems that was concaved as a means of challenging the radsm of white feminists but later became, as the editors put it, "a postive affirmation of the commitment of women of color to our own feminism." However, some of the original animus still informs the book, both in the section on "Radsm in the Woman's Movement" and m various writings throughout the other sections, which treat "the roots of radicalism"; theory "in the flesh"; culture, class, and homophobia; the third world woman writer; and "the vision." A white woman, like myself, searching through the book for signs that women of color are beginning to see the (white) Ught of truth and to give our movement their priority will search in vain: the book gives unqualified notice that women of color have additional priorities and, moreover, are refusing to be tokens and "resource persons" for those unwilling to educate themselves. White feminists the women warn, can no longer expect to achieve liberation by using thdr sisters as convenient bridges to a selective utopia presided over by a white goddess . For instance, in an "Open Letter to Mary Daly," Audre Lorde rebukes Gyn/Ecolog/s author for presenting a one-sided view of Black woman —for detailing the numerous ways the Black woman is victimized in patriarchal sodety, but ignoring the sources of her power and inspiration, and reclaiming only western-european, judeo-christian goddesses. Without bridges, the way will be longer and more difficult. The task fadng white women involves massive self-education about third world women, the willingness, as Mitsuye Yamada suggests, to support women of color in their struggle and to give them our input (rather than always loftily inviting them to join us), and the painful process ofconfronting and working through our radst attitudes. The first step in moving beyond radsm is, obviously , to acknowledge it. And in this the book can function as a definite aid, providing white feminist readers with little shocks of recognition as it becomes increasingly clear that we are percdved by third world feminists in the way leftist males ofthe 1960's were percdved by us. "I can give you so many examples of groups which are 'feminist' in which women of color were given the usual least important task, the shitwork, and given no say in how the group is to be run" (Merle Woo, "Letter to Ma"). After the acknowledgement of radsm comes the even more dificult work of overcoming guilt. Many of the writers seem to consider white women's guilt to be our greatest problem. Audre Lorde decided never again to talk to white women about racism, judging it "a waste of time" because of thdr "destructive guilt and defensiveness." And Cherrie Moraga states that white feminists "oftentimes deny their privilege in the form of'downward mobility' or keep it intact in the form of guilt. Guilt is not a feeUng. It is an inteUectual mask to a feeling ." I concur with these writers about the necessity of getting beyond guilt, but I strenuously reject the notion that guilt can be dismissed as a mere "mask." Surely one of the major accompUshment of the women's movement has been to demonstrate the pervasiveness of guilt in women's emotional Uves. To deny the force of this insight rather than to further our understanding of it through analysis of the mechanism of guUt would ultimately be self-defeating. Freud thought that guilt was the price we pay for civilization itself, and he characterized it as "a permanent internal unhappiness," and "aggression" that has been "displaced inwards" and that may reach "intolerable" heights for some individuals. Indeed, the anguish of the experience ofguUt is eloquently attested to by several writers in this collection as they seek to come to terms with their own racism and sexism. Gloria Anzald üa writes, "I was terrified...

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