The self care industry is worth nearly eleven billion dollars.
This past Women’s history month I became obsessed with the fact that Audre Lorde’s quote about self care being revolutionary was seemingly ubiquitous. It was every where. I set out to find out the origins of the original quote. The original quote comes from the epilogue of the book A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde.
Lorde made that statement after she found out that she had gotten Cancer a second time. She’d be in Germany seeking alternative health treatments, teaching, holding workshops and building community with Afro German women and women of the Black diaspora in Germany and in the United States.
Lorde was not talking about some individual notion of self care, she was talking about figuring out how to stay alive in a system that was trying to kill her. I realized after I found the quote that this is issue that I had with the self care quote. Not only does it violently remove the context of her original statement but it puts the onus of care on the individual. Lorde’s entire essay, and a better part of the book is about figuring out how to be in her body, find the best treatments possible, evaluate the value of the opinions of doctors who were often hostile to her and ultimately how to make peace with having Cancer.
In light of the current conversation around medical care, access and the vulnerability of Black women’s bodies her statement and analysis continues to be relevant.
As I wrote this I began to wonder two things:
What kind of would would we have to live in order for Black women to be properly credited, cited and paid for their work?
What happens when the words of Black feminists are completely taken out of context?