ABSTRACT

The primary voices within lesbian studies that attempt to make a place for their work, and sometimes for themselves, see compulsory heterosexuality and its resulting oppression as their major threats. If white lesbian and white feminist theories are going to be relevant and remain relevant, to both literary studies and liberation movements generally, they must include considerations of these lesbians' experience of identity. The Black slave woman became the symbol of Black male bondage and her children were a constant reminder of the continuation of slavery and/or of the power of the white master. Perhaps the most stunning consequences for the Black woman have been the stereotypes of her that survive within both literature and society. Cheryl Clarke exposes some of this blatant homophobia within the Black community especially as it relates to the concept of the community's survival. The pain that Clarke so aptly describes is represented in numerous works of fiction by and about Black lesbians.