ABSTRACT
Like black men and women who refused to be the exceptional “pet” Negro for whites, and who instead said they were “niggers” too (the original “crime” of “niggers” and lesbians is that they prefer themselves), perhaps black women writers and non-writers should say, simply, whenever black lesbians are being put down, held up, messed over, and generally told their lives should not be encouraged, We are all lesbians. For surely it is better to be thought a lesbian, and to say and write your life exactly as you experience it, than to be a token “pet” black woman for those whose contempt for our autonomous existence makes them a menace to human life. 1
