Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“Notes on a Trip to Russia” establishes the outsider perspective that characterizes the essays and speeches in Sister Outsider. Strategically placed as the first essay, it demonstrates the clarity with which Lorde speaks as someone on the margins of society; she is observed from outside but, at the same time, experiences society from within. This nuanced perspective marks her observations and experiences of American society as a Black lesbian. (The reader may also notice throughout Sister Outsider that Lorde does not reliably capitalize “america” or “europe,” while she does capitalize “Black” and “Color.” This is, on one level, her symbolic rejection of imbalanced societal power structures.)

The visit falls within the time frame of the geopolitical and ideological tension known as the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, so this essay contains Lorde’s observations about the impact of socialism on Russian society. While socialism is an ideology that holds potential for greater equity and has features that Lorde believes make it preferable to capitalism, the problems that she wishes to address about the American structure—racism, sexism, and anti-gay bias, as well as America’s hegemonic influence globally—are not absent from this socialist country. (For differing views on the term “homophobia,” see the Index of Terms.) These problems do, however, appear differently in Russia. To introduce the main idea that socialism has potential despite Russian society’s imperfections, she writes very early in the essay, “For a while, Russia became a mythic representation of that socialism which does not yet exist anywhere I have been” (13), before going on to share her observations in Moscow and Tashkent.

One of Lorde’s first observations regarding race happens on the plane ride to Moscow. After helping an elderly Russian woman with her bags, Lorde is surprised to find that the woman does not look at her with hatred. Noting the contrast to her experience of America, Lorde writes, “I thought with a quick shock how a certain tension in glances between American Black and white people is taken for granted. There was no thank you either, but there was a kind of simple human response to who I was” (14). With this reflection, Lorde alerts readers to the differences in interpersonal relations when the state takes a stance against racism (as in Russia) versus when racism is built into the very institutional structure (as in America). She re-emphasizes this point as she travels to Tashkent and notes the diversity of its architecture and people. Highly impressed by this diversity, she concludes that “the taking of a state position against nationalism, against racism is what makes it possible for a society like this to function” (23).

At the same time, she acknowledges national and racial tensions between the North Russian and Uzbek people in Tashkent, and in both Tashkent and Moscow, Lorde notes the paucity of Black people. Although there is a diminished interest in Black Americans that seems to extend from a fascination with America generally, there is no real Russian solidarity with the Black American struggle. For example, she mentions the little boy who approaches her and wants one of her buttons while she is touring Moscow (19), the woman from the Writers’ Union who wants to interview Lorde since the woman is writing a book on “Negro policy” (18), and the man in Samarkand who wanted to discuss Black Americans (30). However, her meeting with the head of the Uzbekistan Society of Friendship, Madam Izbalkhan—requested for clarification about Lorde’s status at the conference and to find out why there were no meetings for oppressed Black Americans—reveals that she should not expect involvement from the Russian people to aid in Black Americans’ struggle (28-29). Following this meeting, Lorde writes that she came away with the feeling that “we, Black Americans, exist alone in the mouth of the dragon. As I’ve always suspected, outside of rhetoric and proclamations of solidarity, there is no help, except ourselves” (30).

The meeting with Madam Izbalkhan, as well as Lorde’s encounters with other women in Moscow and Tashkent, bring up struggles against sexist and patriarchal oppression, and specifically what Lorde perceives from her outsider perspective. Conversing with Madam Izbalkhan, Lorde learns several impressive facts and statistics regarding Uzbek women’s gains in securing status. Nevertheless, this is the same conversation in which Lorde understands that Russian solidarity with Black Americans is not a reality. After her encounters with several women in Tashkent and Samarkand, Lorde remarks:

In all of the women I’ve met here, I feel an air of security and awareness of their own powers as women, as producers, and as human beings that is very affirming. But I also feel a stony rigidity, a resistance to questioning that frightens me, saddens me, because it feels destructive of progress as process (27).

In addition, after talking with the woman from the Writers’ Union in Moscow, Lorde observes that the woman, “like my guide and most women here, both young and old, seem to mourn the lack of men. At the same time, they appear to have shaken off many of the traditional role-playing devices vis-a-vis men” (20). Lorde’s reflection of her experiences with these women alludes to points she makes in later Sister Outsider essays: There are commonalities between Black and white women in relation to men, and the struggle against patriarchal oppression—even while racism and white women’s methods of fighting patriarchy continue to oppress Black women, impeding true solidarity and sisterhood.

Lorde also makes remarks about her lesbian identity and what she experiences on her trip. During the travel to Tashkent, she notes that her conversation with the three other Black women attending the conference is quite heteronormative (22). During her return to Moscow after being in Tashkent, she and an Eskimo Chukwo woman named Toni speak freely with each other in a loving way and touch and kiss, but they must speak through interpreters because Toni does not speak English and Lorde does not speak Russian (32-33). Lorde recalls the smirks on the Russian interpreters’ faces (33). While in Tashkent, Lorde asks her associate Fikre about the Soviet position on sexual relationships between members of the same sex, and Fikre remarks that “there was no public position because it wasn’t a public matter” (32). Lorde is suspicious of this response.

Thus, while state-sanctioned socialism appears somewhat beneficial, there remain individual and interpersonal aspects of human relationship that must be addressed before any real equity or change can take root. After noting the state stance that enables the cooperation of the diverse population, she says, “[T]he next step in that process [toward equity] must be the personal element […] for without this step socialism remains at the mercy of an incomplete vision, imposed from the outside” (23-24). This suggests the need for self-definition from within as opposed to receiving definition from an external oppressive structure. The Soviet Union’s citizens are not without this need, given that they, too, are touched by America’s hegemony, or dominating influence. Upon speaking with Oleg from the Writers’ Union, Lorde feels that “American standards are sort of an unspoken norm, and that whether one resists them, or whether one adopts them, they are to be reckoned with” (20). Further, in her concluding section, she writes that “no matter how much is said and done, America still appears to have some kind of magic over other countries” (34). Lorde implies that America’s global dominance effects the worldwide propagation of its distinct racism, sexism, capitalism, and anti-gay bias; Americans indifferently watch this oppressive dissemination because they, too, have internalized the culture’s prejudicial values.

“Notes from a Trip to Russia” is the introduction to the problems and considerations Lorde tackles throughout Sister Outsider; she has an outsider perspective not only as a visitor to Russia but as a marginalized Black lesbian in America. Such a vantage point affords her clear insight into the problems of racism, sexism, and anti-gay bias that extend beyond state ideology to the personal and interpersonal sphere. At the same time, because state ideology and institutions influence personal and interpersonal relationships, revolutionary work must be done at a state level to interrogate individuals’ internalized and embodied oppressive beliefs.