implies, it depicts the growing tensions Parker
experienced as a black female “intruder” in cor-
porate America and offers a scathing indictment
of the triple oppressions of racism, sexism, and
classism that she experienced in white America.
Throughout Trespassing, Parker boldly articulates
her anger and frustration at a society that rejects
her as an equal. The last three sections, “Climbing
the Ivy,” “The Letter of the Law,” and “Uppity Bup-
pie,” are painful testimonies about the racial dis-
crimination and gender bias experienced by blacks
with wealth and education. Parker states that her
continued challenge was “to prove that you had
what it took, in a system that was convinced it was
impossible that you did” (161). In the New York
Times Book Review, Deborah McDowell praises
the work for its “frank[ness], humor and compas-
sion” and claims that it “pleads a worthy case for
the privileged few, who should not be expected to
barter their dignity and self-respect for the pot-
tage of wealth and position” (22–23).
Although Gwendolyn Parker has written only
two literary works, along with two screenplays, she
has already made a powerful contribution to the
existing body of contemporary African-Ameri-
can literature. She joins such new and emerging
voices as Davida Adejouma, TINA MCELROY ANSA,
BEBE MOORE CAMPBELL, Patrice Gaines, MARITA
GOLDEN, JANET MCDONALD, JILL NELSON, JEWELL
PARKER RHODES, and CHARLOTTE WATSON SHER-
MAN, to name a few, who were also born during the
late 1940s and early 1950s and share a spectrum of
experiences known to African-American women
during the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and Black
Revolution. Parker lives in Connecticut where she
enjoys her life as a writer.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carroll, Rebecca. I Know What the Red Clay Looks
Like: The Voices and Visions of Black Women Writ-
ers. New York: Carol Southern, 1994.
Humphreys, Josephine. “The Thing about White
People.” Review of These Same Long Bones. New
York Times Book Review, 17 July 1994, pp. 12–19.
Johnson, Cynthia. Review of These Same Long Bones.
Library Journal 119, no. 5 (15 March 1994): 102–
107.
McDowell, Deborah E. “My Life as a Token.” Review
of Trespassing: My Sojourn in the Halls of Privilege.
New York Times Book Review, 19 October 1997,
pp. 22–23.
McHenry, Susan. “The Making of an ‘Uppity’ African-
American: An Interview with Gwendolyn Parker
’72.” Radcliffe Quarterly (Fall/Winter 1997): 34.
Loretta Gilchrist WoodardParker, Pat (1944–1989)
Blunt, courageous, uncompromising, humorous,
willing us with her words to defeat within ourselves
the things that divide us, Pat Parker, born in Hous-
ton, Texas, has been above all a poet of community.
Unlike many of her literary and political contem-
poraries, in the early 1970s Parker, the youngest of
four daughters, claimed solidarity with gay men,
in defiance of lesbian separatists, and with white
women, in defiance of black separatists. Her ab-
solute openness about being a lesbian when that
was an especially transgressive acknowledgment
within the African-American community and the
writers of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT was coupled
with absolute respect for that community. De-
terminedly a poet for the people, when she used
an even faintly advanced word, like protocols, in a
poem, she asterisked it and provided a definition.
Writing out of an oral tradition, in ordinary
language, Parker demanded accountability:Brother
I don’t want to hear
about
how my real enemy
is the system.
i’m no genius,
but i do know
that system
you hit me with
is called
a fist.Among her best-known poems are two whose ti-
tles suggest her stripped-down style: “For the white
person who wants to know how to be my friend”404 Parker, Pat