"I Give You a World Incomplete": Pat Parker's Revolution and the Unfinished Legacy of 1970s Feminist Radicalisms

Abstract:Immortalized in This Bridge Called My Back, Pat Parker's speech at the 1980 "BASTA! Women's Conference on Imperialism and Third World War" issued a clear call to feminist revolution. "Revolution: It's Not Neat, or Pretty, or Quick" was unabashed in its critique of feminist assimilation into US empire, sounding a bellwether for radical movements to come. Accompanying Parker's fiery nature, however, was also a quieter more reflective Parker, and one who oriented her gaze inward and glanced backward in order to propose a complex philosophy of intergenerational revolution. This essay juxtaposes these different facets of Parker's work through a reading of her two poems "Where Will You Be?" and "Legacy" to ask how a more nuanced reading of Parker's work might open up revolutionary possibilities that have been foreclosed through several decades of neoliberal backlash waged upon leftist social movements of the late twentieth century. I close with reflections about the implications of contemporary re-engagements with Parker's work, particularly in a time marked, on the one hand, by an overt intensification of unabashed forms of fascist heteropatriarchal white supremacy, and on the other, a resurgence of a current Black and queer of color feminist radicality, the intensity of which has not been seen since Parker's time.