working my rainbows~~entering performance studies installment

So it is Better to Speak:
Audre Lorde and the Perlocutionary Speech Act

Austin teaches that the perlocutionary act is a method for employing speech for the sole purpose of affecting change. He writes, "Saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them" (101). This explanation speaks to how perlocutionary speech is methodically implored to incite a cerebral and visceral change in the audience who partakes in the performance of such an act. One should consider experiencing the radical speeches of the Womanist liberation movement, such and the Combahee River Collective Statement or the writings of Elaine Brown, as examples of such texts. Influential writers, such as Audre Lorde, cast her "words as weapons" as invocations for a sensibility shift, but moreover, a call to direct action to "do" something to alter and dismantle the systematic oppression of Black women during the 1970's.

Austin provides an example of the perlocutionary act in his eighth lecture. He writes, "He persuaded me to shoot her" (102). This example illustrates the two key elements of the perlocutionary act: the statement and the presence of a desired effect. In this basic case one
views the statement and performance through the inclusion of the act of persuading the listening party. One should also notice the desired effect of the speech act as the shooting and possible death of the victim of this violent act.

This explanation provides the much needed backdrop for understanding how Audre Lorde wields the perlocutionary speech act, in her poem "Litany for Survival". In the poem she incites Black women to speak against sexual violence, homophobia, oppression and the culture of silence that encapsulates these issues. The first three stanzas of this poem present a multitude of situations that have historically silenced Black women. She writes, "for those of us who love in doorways/ coming and going…who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice". It is important to note that this silencing is not just a silencing of voice, but also the silencing of action. Perhaps Lorde provides this litany to remind women of their shared trauma. It is possible that this litany serves as a galvanizing tool to agitate the audience and stir the emotions so that when she exclaims, "So it is better to speak…," the audience is prepared to thoroughly absorb these words for the purpose of acting against oppression in their communities.

In Lorde's successful recitation of this poem she leaps beyond the intent to write and share a poem. She performs the act she incites in her audience and by doing so provides a template for how women can use speech to resist oppression. In short, Lorde's speech act, "…successfully achieves or consummates or brings off" (106), the desired effect she encourages her audience members to practice. Austin encourages his readers to consider the successful completion and consequences of perlocutionary speech acts. The trajectory of the Womanist movement and the prevalence of Lorde's oeuvre in contemporary social justice work shows and proves the successful completion and far reaching consequences of her speech act.