The Role of Capitalization in Uplifting the Black Race in Lorde’s “Age, Race, Class, and Sex" Paulyn Annor College

In “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”, Audre Lorde begins this essay by acknowledging the fact that there have been systems instituted to make people inferior in order to uplift others. Lorde then proceeds to argue that in Western and American culture, it is not the presence of differences, rather it is the lack of acknowledgment of these differences that have caused division and tension between various races, classes, ages, and sexes. Lorde also delves into the feminist movement which is dominated and controlled by white, heterosexual, and socially fit women, which often tends to exclude women of color, women of lower social classes and women who identify as LGBTQ+. She then proceeds to argue that even within the Black community, Black heterosexual women are blind to the plights of Black lesbians who work and struggle tirelessly to advocate and defend the Black community.

An obvious and apparent literary device of Lorde’s is her use of punctuation and capitalization of words regarding racial identification. Lorde defines the term “mythical norm” in terms of race, gender, sexuality, etc. for her readers: "Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us...